Caroline (Bowles) Southey (1787–1854)

I SAW it in my evening walk,

A little lonely flower!

Under a hollow bank it grew,

Deep in a mossy bower.

An oak’s gnarl’d root, to roof the cave

With Gothic fretwork sprung,

Whence jewell’d fern, and arum leaves,

And ivy garlands hung.

And from beneath came sparkling out

From a fallen tree’s old shell,

A little rill, that dipt about

The lady in her cell.

And there, methought, with bashful pride,

She seem’d to sit and look

On her own maiden loveliness

Pale imaged in the brook.

No other flower—no rival grew

Beside my pensive maid;

She dwelt alone, a cloister’d nun,

In solitude and shade.

No sunbeam on that fairy well

Darted its dazzling light—

Only, methought, some clear, cold star

Might tremble there at night.

No ruffling wind could reach her there—

No eye, methought, but mine,

Or the young lamb’s that came to drink,

Had spied her secret shrine.

And there was pleasantness to me

In such belief. Cold eyes

That slight dear Nature’s lowliness,

Profane her mysteries.

Long time I looked and linger’d there,

Absorb’d in still delight—

My spirit drank deep quietness

In, with that quiet sight.