Blessing she is:  God made her so,
      And deeds of week-day holiness
    Fall from her noiseless as the snow,
    Nor hath she ever chanced to know
      That aught were easier than to bless. 30

    She is most fair, and thereunto
      Her life doth rightly harmonize;
    Feeling or thought that was not true
    Ne’er made less beautiful the blue
      Unclouded heaven of her eyes. 35

    She is a woman:  one in whom
      The spring-time of her childish years
    Hath never lost its fresh perfume,
    Though knowing well that life hath room
      For many blights and many tears. 40

    I love her with a love as still
      As a broad river’s peaceful might,
    Which, by high tower and lowly mill,
    Goes wandering at its own will,
      And yet doth ever flow aright. 45

    And, on its full, deep breast serene,
      Like quiet isles my duties lie;
    It flows around them and between,
    And makes them fresh and fair and green,
      Sweet homes wherein to live and die. 50

THE CHANGELING

    I had a little daughter,
      And she was given to me
    To lead me gently backward
      To the Heavenly Father’s knee,
    That I, by the force of nature, 5
      Might in some dim wise divine
    The depth of his infinite patience
      To this wayward soul of mine.

    I know not how others saw her,
      But to me she was wholly fair, 10
    And the light of the heaven she came from
      Still lingered and gleamed in her hair;
    For it was as wavy and golden,
      And as many changes took,
    As the shadows of sun-gilt ripples 15
      On the yellow bed of a brook.

    To what can I liken her smiling
      Upon me, her kneeling lover? 
    How it leaped from her lips to her eyelids,
      And dimpled her wholly over, 20
    Till her outstretched hands smiled also,
      And I almost seemed to see
    The very heart of her mother
      Sending sun through her veins to me!

    She had been with us scarce a twelve-month, 25
      And it hardly seemed a day,
    When a troop of wandering angels
      Stole my little daughter away;
    Or perhaps those heavenly Zingari
      But loosed the hampering strings, 30
    And when they had opened her cage-door,
      My little bird used her wings.

    But they left in her stead a changeling,
      A little angel child,
    That seems like her bud in full blossom, 35
      And smiles as she never smiled: 
    When I wake in the morning, I see it
      Where she always used to lie,
    And I feel as weak as a violet
      Alone ’neath the awful sky. 40