| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895. |
| |
| Natura Benigna |
| | | Theodore Watts-Dunton (1832–1914) |
| |
| |
| WHAT power is this? what witchery wins my fee | |
| To peaks so sheer they scorn the cloaking snow | |
| All silent as the emerald gulfs below, | |
| Down whose ice-walls the wings of twilight beat? | |
| What thrill of earth and heaven—most wild, most sweet— | 5 |
| What answering pulse that all the senses know | |
| Comes leaping from the ruddy eastern glow | |
| Where, far away, the skies and mountains meet? | |
| Mother, ’t is I once more: I know thee well, | |
| Yet comes that throb, an ever-new surprise! | 10 |
| O Mother and Queen, beneath the olden spell | |
| Of silence, gazing from thy hills and skies! | |
| Dumb Mother, struggling with the years to tell | |
| The secret at thy heart through helpless eyes. | |
| |
|
|
|
