Bright pomp of mingled vale and mound!
Fair walks and alleys green!
—Yet let me go where humbler ground
Lets Nature's will be seen.
We imitate—'tis wisely done,
Yet ofttimes do we find,
With all her features fairly won,
We have not caught her mind.
For she hath meanings, though unseen;
In wisdom and in love,
She spreads her placid sheets of green,
Or knits the boughs above.
In wood and wold, in field and lane,
She walks, a blameless Muse;
Still busy something to restrain,
And something to infuse.
Florence,