The brooding wren flies pertly near thy seat, Thou wilt not move to mark her glancing wing; The timid sheep browse close before thy feet, And heedless at thy side do thrushes sing. So long amongst them thou hast spent thy days, They know that harmless hand thou wilt not raise. Thou wilt not lift it up--not e'en to take The foxglove bells that nourish in the shade, And put them in thy bosom; not to make A posy of wild hyacinth inlaid Like bright mosaic in the mossy grass, With freckled orchis and pale sassafras. Gaze on;--take in the voices of the Mere. The break of shallow water at thy feet, Its plash among long weeds and grasses sere, And its weird sobbing,--hollow music meet For ears like thine; listen and take thy till, And dream on it by night when all is still. Full sixteen years have slowly passed away, Young Margaret, since thy fond mother here Came down, a six month's wife, one April day, To see her husband's boat go down the Mere, And track its course, till, lost in distance blue, In mellow light it faded from her view. It faded, and she never saw it more;-- Nor any human eye;--oh, grief! oh, woe! It faded,--and returned not to the shore; But far above it still the waters flow-- And none beheld it sink, and none could tell Where coldly slept the form she loved so well! But that sad day, unknowing of her fate, She homeward turn'd her still reluctant feet; And at her wheel she spun, till dark and late The evening fell--the time when they should meet; Till the stars paled that at deep midnight burned-- And morning dawned, and he was not returned. And the bright sun came up--she thought too soon-- And shed his ruddy light along the Mere; And day wore on too quickly, and at noon She came and wept beside the waters clear. "How could he be so late?"--and then hope fled; And disappointment darkened into dread. He NEVER came, and she with weepings sore Peered in the water-nags unceasingly; Through all the undulations of the shore, Looking for that which most she feared to see. And then she took home sorrow to her heart, And brooded over its cold cruel smart. And after, desolate she sat alone And mourned, refusing to be comforted, On the gray stone, the moss-embroidered stone, With the great sycamore above her head; Till after many days a broken oar Hard by her seat was drifted to the shore. It came,--a token of his fate,--the whole, The sum of her misfortune to reveal; As if sent up in pity to her soul, The tidings of her widowhood to seal; And put away the pining hope forlorn, That made her grief more bitter to be borne. And she was patient; through the weary day She toiled; though none was there her work to bless; And did not wear the sullen months away, Nor call on death to end her wretchedness, But lest the grief should overflow her breast, She toiled as heretofore, and would not rest.