Page:The poems of George Eliot (Crowell, 1884).djvu/338

310 All lore that shapes the mind to delicate use,

Yet quiet, lowly, as a meek white dove

That with its presence teaches gentleness.

Men called her Countess Linda; little girls

In Freiburg town, orphans whom she caressed,

Said Mamma Linda: yet her years were few,

Her outward beauties all in budding time,

Her virtues the aroma of the plant

That dwells in all its being, root, stem, leaf,

And waits not ripeness.

"Sit," said Agatha.

Her cousins were at work in neighboring homes

But yet she was not lonely; all things round

Seemed filled with noiseless yet responsive life,

As of a child at breast that gently clings:

Not sunlight only or the breathing flowers

Or the swift shadows of the birds and bees,

But all the household goods, which, polished fair

By hands that cherished them for service done,

Shone as with glad content. The wooden beams

Dark and yet friendly, easy to be reached.

Bore three white crosses for a speaking sign;

The walls had little pictures hung a-row,

Telling the stories of Saint Ursula,

And Saint Elizabeth, the lowly queen;

And on the bench that served for table too,

Skirting the wall to save the narrow space,

There lay the Catholic books, inherited

From those old times when printing still was young

With stout-limbed promise, like a sturdy boy.

And in the farthest corner stood the bed

Where o'er the pillow hung two pictures wreathed

With fresh-plucked ivy: one the Virgin's death,

And one her flowering tomb, while high above