University of Virginia Library


96

Jenny Lind.

NOVEMBER 2ND, 1887.
Never again to see an English Spring!
Never to watch the purple copses burn,
The gold gay-hearted daffodil return!
Never to hear the lark above me sing
And climbing up his stair ring after ring,
Send consolation earthwards! how I yearn
But once, once more, to find the bracken fern
Lifting to fragrant light its fairy wing!
The Malvern valleys, mist-enshrouded, wait,
The Malvern hills are shuddering into snow,
But thou clear-throated angel-heart of Dawn,
Thou standest now within the happier gate
Whence all the springs with life and love shall flow,
To thrill the nightingale and flush the lawn.

I touched on the exquisite loveliness of her little home. “Yes,” she said, “but I am never to see a spring here. The three first springs I was at work at the College—and now.” —Scott Holland, Murray's Magazine, December, 1887.