To the Memory of Helen Hunt Jackson: A Dedication
GREAT heart of many loves! while earth was thine,
Thou didst love Nature and her every mood:
Beneath thine eye the frail flower of the wood
Uplifted not in vain its fleeting sign,
And on thy hearth the mast-tree’s blaze benign,
With all its sylvan lore, was understood!
Seems homely Nature’s mother-face less good,
Spirit down-gazing from the Fields Divine ?
Oh, let me bring these gathered leaves of mine,
Praising the common earth, the rural year,
And consecrate them to thy memory dear, —
Thought’s pilgrim to thy mortal body’s shrine,
Beneath soft sheddings of the mountain pine
And trailing mountain heath untouched with sere!
Thou didst love Nature and her every mood:
Beneath thine eye the frail flower of the wood
Uplifted not in vain its fleeting sign,
And on thy hearth the mast-tree’s blaze benign,
With all its sylvan lore, was understood!
Seems homely Nature’s mother-face less good,
Spirit down-gazing from the Fields Divine ?
Oh, let me bring these gathered leaves of mine,
Praising the common earth, the rural year,
And consecrate them to thy memory dear, —
Thought’s pilgrim to thy mortal body’s shrine,
Beneath soft sheddings of the mountain pine
And trailing mountain heath untouched with sere!
Edith M. Thomas.