She is so winsome and so wise
She sways us at her will,
And oft the question will arise
What mission does she fill?
And so I say, with pride untold
And love beyond degree,
This woman with the heart of gold,
She just keeps house for me.

A full content dwells in her face,
She's quite in love with life,
And for a title wears with grace
The sweet old-fashioned — Wife. —

What though I toil from morn till night,
What though I weary grow,
A spring of love and dear delight
Doth ever softly flow.

Mine is no wayside rose
All may attend:
At the hill's top it grows,
At the road's end.

Deep in unchidden weeds,
Rose without stain—
His soul its beauty feeds
Who can attain.

He who attains thereto
Faith must disclose,
Ere he will shake the dew
Round its repose.

No pleasant garden-slope
Waiteth for him—
It is to him whose hope
Stayeth undim.

Who trusting receives it,
A faith, in the dale,
His hoping achieves it,
His toil shall avail!

I learn to lag behind my life's desire,
That I, impelled not rashly to despair,
May rather guide still hope to some sweet air
Of high achievement where, with statelier fire,
Nearer the stars, my passion may aspire!
Slow-tongued Experience teaches me to bear
On lips more patient Love's impatient prayer,
With toiling hands to weave my dream's attire!
Yet, oh, when fragrant evening dims the world,
What moon-flames burn in all the lamps of dew!
What lonely roses lift their hearts impearled —
What silence waits the step and voice of you!

Her whom dark cities never pleased
The wandergeist again hath seized;
She who in gardens loves to bore,
And the moist, rooty soil explore,
Now all the furrows of the deep,
Parterres of waving green, shall sweep.
So shall she pile with richer store
The memories on her harvest-floor;
Red sunsets, and the long, superb
White spires of many a wave-crest herb.
Amid those pleasant, foam-flowered leas,
The unwalled orchards of the seas,
She whose life loves the golden sun
Each ripening dusk shall pluck her one,

Did ever a youth pass by the spot
Your fragrance, love, made dear,
Without a heart-leap at the lot
That drew his fancy near?

Was ever a maid of fairy stuff
Like this in days of old —
A rose already fine enough
Without that heart of gold!

How can a soul of sinless ray,
Now breathing love, incline to stray,
Or need to be forgiven?
O Innocence, with laughing eyes!
Thou art a cherub from the skies,
A wanderer from heaven.

Ha! gentle spirit, gift divine,
There's nectar on those lips of thine,
And sweet the kiss I've won:
There dwells no dew on proffered lip,
That's pure, like that on thine, to sip, —
On loveliest woman's, — none.

With heart sincere, while it shall beat,
May violets spring beneath thy feet,
And roses crown thy youth;

If lock'd in soft and sweet repose
(The balm which Heaven assigns to woe,)
Thy soul ideal pleasure knows,
And gentle passions calmly glow,
Still, still entranc'd in slumber lie,
Till morn invades the eastern sky.

But if contending passions tear
That bosom form'd for love alone;
If haggard Grief, and wild Despair,
Torment thee with fictitious moan;
O quit the scene of misery,
And wake, dear maid, to love and me.

Go forth, deep lost in thought,
Where none intrude,
And let thy faith be wrought
In solitude:
Truth waits, yet must be sought.

Yes, with thyself commune,
And, soft as lute,
Thy heart-strings thus attune
To love that's mute,
And vain aspirings prune.

'Tis only love — complete —
That will endure,
When earth-life frail and fleet,
And hopes not sure,
Depart, — pure love, I weet, —

The sentiment that's shrined
Deep in the heart;
The wealth of soul and mind;
That better part

I love to think that spirits dwell
Upon the earth, — the beautiful, the good,
Whose sympathies are pure, yet understood
By none save those who feel the spell.

I love to think that in life's vale
There are ungathered flowers, whose bosoms glow
With silent feeling and with tender woe
For him whose hopes, long cherished, fail.

I love to think that still a ray,
Divine like that of hope, will long be felt
By her to whom in earlier years I knelt, —
The vision of my darkened way.

I love to think that golden hours

Cold, cold in her little bed,
With all the spring returning!
Can flowers come back while she lies dead,
And the world go unmourning?

Cold, cold, in her little bed,
Snowdrops her starry cover ...
Oh, Spring, go softly overhead
For the sake of those who love her!