Page:A Year's Life.djvu/130

116 Yet sets she not her soul so steadily

Above, that she forgets her ties to earth,

But her whole thought would almost seem to be

How to make glad one lowly human hearth;

For with a gentle courage she doth strive

In thought and word and feeling so to live

As to make earth next Heaven; and her heart

Herein doth show its most exceeding worth,

That, bearing in our frailty her just part,

She hath not shrunk from evils of this life,

But hath gone calmly forth into the strife,

And all its sins and sorrows hath withstood

With lofty strength of patient womanhood:

For this I love her great soul more than all,

That, being bound, like us, with earthly thrall,

She walks so bright and heaven-like therein,—

Too wise, too meek, to womanly, to sin.

Exceeding pleasant to mine eyes is she:

Like a lone star through riven storm-clouds seen