With earnest feeling I shall pray
  For thee when I am far away;
  For never saw I mien or face,
  In which more plainly I could trace
  Benignity and home-bred sense
  Ripening in perfect innocence. 
  Here scattered, like a random seed,
  Remote from men, thou dost not need
  The embarrassed look of shy distress,
  And maidenly shamefacedness: 
  Thou wear’st upon thy forehead clear
  The freedom of a mountaineer: 
  A face with gladness overspread! 
  Soft smiles, by human kindness bred! 
  And seemliness complete, that sways
  Thy courtesies, about thee plays;
  With no restraint, but such as springs
  From quick and eager visitings
  Of thoughts that lie beyond the reach
  Of thy few words of English speech: 
  A bondage sweetly brooked, a strife
  That gives thy gestures grace and life! 
  So have I, not unmoved in mind,
  Seen birds of tempest-loving kind—­
  Thus beating up against the wind.

  What hand but would a garland cull
  For thee who art so beautiful? 
  O happy pleasure! here to dwell
  Beside thee in some heathy dell;
  Adopt your homely ways and dress,
  A shepherd, thou a shepherdess: 
  But I could frame a wish for thee
  More like a grave reality: 
  Thou art to me but as a wave
  Of the wild sea; and I would have
  Some claim upon thee, if I could,
  Though but of common neighborhood
  What joy to hear thee, and to see! 
  Thy elder brother I would be,
  Thy father—­anything to thee!

  Now thanks to heaven! that of its grace
  Hath led me to this lonely place. 
  Joy have I had; and going hence
  I bear away my recompense. 
  In spots like these it is we prize
  Our memory, feel that she hath eyes: 
  Then why should I be loth to stir? 
  I feel this place was made for her;
  To give new pleasure like the past,
  Continued long as life shall last. 
  Nor am I loth, though pleased at heart,
  Sweet Highland Girl, from thee to part;
  For I, methinks, till I grow old,
  As fair before me shall behold,
  As I do now, the cabin small,
  The lake, the bay, the waterfall,
  And thee, the spirit of them all!

I had finished, and the poem had been to me like a draught of the fresh spring-water which I had sipped so often of late as it dropped from the cup of some large green leaf.

Then I heard her gentle voice, like the first tone of the organ, which wakens us from our dreamy devotion, and she said: 

“Thus I desire you to love me, and thus the old Hofrath loves me, and thus in one way or another we should all love and believe in each other.  But the world, although I scarcely know it, does not seem to understand this love and faith, and, on this earth, where we could have lived so happily, men have made existence very wretched.