Matin Bells and Scarlet and Gold :: :: University of Virginia Library

She is shy as mosses shaded
By the thickest woodland eaves,
Where the glimmering beams are braided
With the glooming of the leaves.
But she has a perfume all her own,
And a beauty to her dear ones known
That is granted but to few,
And her quiet graces shine the best
When she cradles on the evening's breast
With the twilight and the dew.
And she likes in dim recesses

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With the birdies to be laid,
For the butterflies' caresses,
And she is the Pansy Maid.

She is quaint and sad and sober,
And a mingling of the May
With the sadness of October
And the glory ere decay.
O she smiles, but babbles not as much
As my other children, and her touch
Has a magic more than art;
For it turns to kindness all it can,
Though it is not conscious of a plan,
And it trembles on the heart.
She is silent, but her fancies
Are most eloquent if staid,
For her life is all romances,
And she is the Pansy Maid.

Ah, I love to catch her dreaming
In some sheltered rosy nook,
And to mark the stories gleaming
On her face's picture book.
When she wanders through enchanted halls,
And the echoes of dim trumpet calls
To her hearing come from far,
At the challenge down the ages sent
With its troubled tidings yet unspent,
As the iron gates unbar.
Like the clouds upon a meadow
And without a word in aid,
I see feeling's every shadow,
And she is the Pansy Maid.

When her sisters think of sleeping
In the curtained evening hour,
She is wide awake and keeping
A sweet vigil with some flower.
Her dear lips of love and crimson part,
And her thoughts on some lone journey start
Which she never cares to close,

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Till her rich dark locks and darker eyes
On untravelled earth, with unmapt skies,
Find a refuge in repose.
She is drowsy in the morning,
For her pleasures must be paid,
Though her dreams are her adorning,
And she is the Pansy Maid.