| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | VIII. Wayfarers | | By Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith (1806–1893) |
| | | EARTH careth for her own: the fox lies down | |
| In her warm bosom, and it asks no more. | |
| The bird, content, broods in its lowly nest, | |
| Or, its fine essence stirred, with wing outflown, | |
| Circles in airy rounds to heaven’s own door, | 5 |
| And folds again its plume upon her breast. | |
| Ye, too, for whom her palaces arise, | |
| Whose Tyrian vestments sweep the kindred ground, | |
| Whose golden chalice Ivy-Bacchus dyes, | |
| She, kindly mother, liveth in your eyes, | 10 |
| And no strange anguish may your lives astound. | |
| But ye, O pale, lone watchers for the true, | |
| She knoweth not. In her ye have not found | |
| Place for your stricken head, wet with the midnight dew. | | | | |
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