Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Margaret L. Woods

Rest

TO Spend the long warm days

Silent beside the silent-stealing streams,

To see, not gaze,—

To hear, not listen, thoughts exchanged for dreams:

See clouds that slowly pass

Trailing their shadows o’er the far faint down,

And ripening grass,

While yet the meadows wear their starry crown:

To hear the breezes sigh

Cool in the silver leaves like falling rain,

Pause and go by,

Tired wanderers o’er the solitary plain:

See far from all affright

Shy river creatures play hour after hour,

And night by night

Low in the West the white moon’s folding flower.

Thus lost to human things,

To blend at last with Nature and to hear

What songs she sings

Low to herself when there is no one near.