A MIEN of modest loveliness, | |
| A brow on which no shadow lies, | |
| And woman’s soul of truthfulness | |
| Out-looking from soft hazel eyes: | |
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| Thy placid features only show | 5 |
| The happy mother, faithful wife, | |
| Not her whose fate it was to know | |
| All strange vicissitudes of life. | |
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| Unnoticed in thy youthful days | |
| It was thy happy lot to move, | 10 |
| Brightening life’s unobtrusive ways | |
| With the sweet ministries of love. | |
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| And learning the great truths of life | |
| That best are learned in solitude, | |
| But only in its after strife | 15 |
| Are ever proved or understood! | |
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| That toiling early, toiling late, | |
| For others, is our highest bliss— | |
| Man, even in his best estate, | |
| Hath no more happiness than this. | 20 |
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| Such truth it was, that even there, | |
| Where reigned the prison’s gloom and chill, | |
| Could keep thee wholly from despair, | |
| And make thee toil for others still. | |
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| Till thine own sorrows half forgot, | 25 |
| Thy noblest sacrifice was shown | |
| In words and deeds for those whose lot | |
| Was far more wretched than thine own. | |
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| Yet well for thee our tears may flow, | |
| Though high thy name emblazoned stands, | 30 |
| Thou, with a woman’s heart, could’st know | |
| No life that woman’s heart demands. | |
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| Happier than thou, with fame and wealth, | |
| Is she who cheers earth’s humblest place; | |
| Leaving no picture of herself, | 35 |
| Save in a daughter’s modest face. | |
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