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At such an hour, on
such a summer night,
Silent and calm in its transparent light,
A widowed parent watched her slumbering child,
On whose young face the sixteenth summer smiled.
Fair was the face she watched! Nor less, because
Beauty's perfection seemed to make a pause,
And wait, on that smooth brow, some further touch,
Some spell from Time, - the great magician, - such
As calls the closed bud out of hidden gloom,
And bids it wake to glory, light, and bloom.
Girlish as yet, but with the gentle grace
Of a young fawn in its low resting-place,
Her folded limbs were lying: from her hand
A group of wild-flowers, - Nature's brightest band,
Of all that laugh along the Summer fields,
Of all the sunny hedge-row freely yields,
Of all that in the wild-wood darkly hide,
Or on the thyme-bank wave in breezy pride, -
Showed, that the weariness which closed in sleep
So tranquil, child-like, innocent, and deep,
Nor festal gaiety, nor toilsome hours,
Had brought; but, like a flower among the flowers,
She had been wandering 'neath the Summer sky,
Youth on her lip and gladness in her eye,
Twisting the wild rose from its native thorn,
And the blue scabious from the sunny corn;
Smiling and singing like a spirit fair
That walked the world, but had no dwelling there.
And still (as though their faintly-scented breath
Preserved a meek fidelity in death)
Each late imprisoned blossom fondly lingers
Within the touch of her unconscious fingers,
Though, languidly unclasped, that hand no more
Guards its possession of the rifled store.
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