University of Virginia Library

Our home is a bright little cottage, half-smothered in yellow rose,
Not yet blooming, however; a still river sullenly flows
Deep at the foot of a broomy brae, and the leaping trout
Ripple its gloom in the evening as gay flies flicker about.
Nor is it all so sullen, for down in a farther reach
It leaps and sparkles and gleams o'er the stones of a pebbly beach,
Under the birch and the hazel, just coming to leaf, and there are
Blue-bell patches of sky, made bright with the primrose star.
Behind is a group of great fir-trees, five of them, red-armed firs,—
Druid sisters he calls them,—that moan when the night-wind stirs;
Last of a great pine forest that stubs the heath with its roots
For miles, till you come to a tarn where gulls and little round coots
Are dipping and diving all day in a quiet solitude;
There the bee haunts, and the air is blithe, and the lapwings brood.
I hear the curlew scream, and the grouse-cock crowing at dawn,
And yet when I stand at the door, where the cowslips laugh on the lawn—
It is only a patch of green turf, enough to pasture a lark—
I see the sleepy old town, and the spires of the Minster dark,
And catch a glimpse of the sea-waves white on the yellow sand,
Where the river leaps at the bar, and the coastguard houses stand.
We have a bright little garden down on a sunny slope,
Bordered with sea-pinks, and sweet with the songs and the blossoms of hope.
Oh, it is all too good for me; often I catch myself singing
In very lightness of heart, and I seem like the birds to be winging
Merry from room to room, as they flutter from bush to tree,
And each has her mate a-coming, as mine, too, is coming to me.
Am I wrong to be always so happy? This world is full of grief;
Yet there is laughter of sunshine, to see the crisp green on the leaf,
Daylight is ringing with song-birds, and brooklets are crooning by night;
And why should I make a shadow where God makes all so bright?
Earth may be wicked and weary, yet cannot I help being glad;
There is sunshine without and within me, and how should I mope or be sad?
God would not flood me with blessings, meaning me only to pine
Amid all the bounties and beauties He pours upon me and mine;
Therefore will I be grateful, and therefore will I rejoice;
My heart is singing within me; sing on, O heart and voice.