Shall I, in your mild aspects, read the peace That dwells within, and vainly shall I pine To hear your sweet low voices. Haply now Ye miss me in your deep-sea home, and think Of me with pity, as of one condemned To haunt this upper world, with its harsh sounds And glaring lights, its withering heats, its frosts, Cruel and killing, its delirious strifes, And all its feverish passions, till I die." So mourned she the long night, and when the morn Brightened the mountains, from her lattice looked The maiden on a world that was to her A desolate and dreary waste. That day She passed in wandering by the brook that oft Had been her pathway to the sea, and still Seemed, with its cheerful murmur, to invite Her footsteps thither. "Well mayst thou rejoice, Fortunate stream!" she said, "and dance along Thy bed, and make thy course one ceaseless strain Of music, for thou journeyest toward the deep, To which I shall return no more." The night Brought her to her lone chamber, and she knelt And prayed, with many tears, to Him whose hand Touches the wounded heart and it is healed. With prayer there came new thoughts and new desires. She asked for patience and a deeper love For those with whom her lot was henceforth cast, And that in acts of mercy she might lose The sense of her own sorrow. When she rose A weight was lifted from her heart. She sought Her couch, and slept a long and peaceful sleep. At morn she woke to a new life. Her days Henceforth were given to quiet tasks of good In the great world. Men hearkened to her words, And wondered at their wisdom and obeyed, And saw how beautiful the law of love Can make the cares and toils of daily life. Still did she love to haunt the springs and brooks As in her cheerful childhood, and she taught The skill to pierce the soil and meet the veins Of clear cold water winding underneath, And call them forth to daylight. From afar She bade men bring the rivers on long rows Of pillared arches to the sultry town, And on the hot air of the summer fling The spray of dashing fountains. To relieve Their weary hands, she showed them how to tame The rushing stream, and make him drive the wheel That whirls the humming millstone and that wields The ponderous sledge. The waters of the cloud, That drench the hillside in the time of rains, Were gathered, at her bidding, into pools, And in the months of drought led forth again, In glimmering rivulets, to refresh the vales, Till the sky darkened with returning showers. So passed her life, a long and blameless life, And far and near her name was named with love And reverence. Still she kept, as age came on, Her stately presence; still her eyes looked forth From under their calm brows as brightly clear As the transparent wells by which she sat So oft in childhood. Still she kept her fair Unwrinkled features, though her locks were white.