As a shy bird that startled from her nest
Wings her far way into the highest blue,
Nor dreams that she has left us any clue
To find which elm tree had been loved the best;
Though all the while its light boughs, fluttering
In the deep noonday silence, softly beat
Their soundless echoes to her flying feet
Now swiftly in the blue air vanishing:—
So haply you would keep a secret, dear,
Your unseen presence in my little room,
That glorified into unwonted bloom
Betrays to me what fair guest has been here.
Who else, dear, in my absence would have thought
To close the favorite book, left open here
Where a disputed passage was made clear
By a few words with tedious patience sought;—
Then with a sudden and repentant grace
That all the mischief of its fault bereft,
Have found the very page again, and left
A rose in the shut book to mark the place.