 | The Outcast, and other poems |  |
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WILL HE BITE?
No, boy, not one so innocent as thou,With such youth and gentleness on his brow.
He will not harm thy little hand,
Or shrink from the touch of one so bland.
He sees in thy full and speaking eye,
Only the hues of the bending sky—
He marks in thy cheek but the wild flower's glow,
He hears in thy voice but the glad rill's flow.
He sees in thy step but the joyous bound
Of the mountain lamb on the slopes around.
He will not bite, for thine image brings
But semblances of familiar things—
Things that he loves in the breezy wood,
In the leafy dell, and the shouting flood.
It was deeply told, when in youth he swung
Aloft on an oak where the loud winds sung,
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From a look like thine that he need not start.
'Twas the wily eye, and the stealing tread,
And the knowing brow, he was taught to dread.
But thou wert safe as a mountain flower,
Where the sliding snake and gaunt wolf cower—
Aye, and the proud may learn from the lay,
That Innocence hath a surer shield than they.
| The Outcast, and other poems | |