She is too kind, I think, for mortal things, 
Too gentle for the gusty ways of earth; 
God gave to her a shy and silver mirth, 
And made her soul as clear 
And softly singing as an orchard spring's 
In sheltered hollows all the sunny year-- 
A spring that thru the leaning grass looks up 
And holds all heaven in its clarid cup, 
Mirror to holy meadows high and blue 
With stars like drops of dew.

I love to think that never tears at night 
Have made her eyes less bright; 
That all her girlhood thru 
Never a cry of love made over-tense 
Her voice's innocence; 
That in her hands have lain, 
Flowers beaten by the rain, 
And little birds before they learned to sing 
Drowned in the sudden ecstasy of spring.

I love to think that with a wistful wonder 
She held her baby warm against her breast; 
That never any fear awoke whereunder 
She shuddered at her gift, or trembled lest 
Thru the great doors of birth 
Here to a windy earth 
She lured from heaven a half-unwilling guest.

She caught and kept his first vague flickering smile, 
The faint upleaping of his spirit's fire; 
And for a long sweet while 
In her was all he asked of earth or heaven-- 
But in the end how far, 
Past every shaken star, 
Should leap at last that arrow-like desire, 
His full-grown manhood's keen 
Ardor toward the unseen 
Dark mystery beyond the Pleiads seven. 
And in her heart she heard 
His first dim-spoken word-- 
She only of them all could understand, 
Flushing to feel at last 
The silence over-past, 
Thrilling as tho' her hand had touched God's hand. 
But in the end how many words 
Winged on a flight she could not follow, 
Farther than skyward lark or swallow, 
His lips should free to lands she never knew; 
Braver than white sea-faring birds 
With a fearless melody, 
Flying over a shining sea, 
A star-white song between the blue and blue.

Oh I have seen a lake as clear and fair 
As it were molten air, 
Lifting a lily upward to the sun. 
How should the water know the glowing heart 
That ever to the heaven lifts its fire, 
A golden and unchangeable desire? 
The water only knows 
The faint and rosy glows 
Of under-petals, opening apart. 
Yet in the soul of earth, 
Deep in the primal ground, 
Its searching roots are wound, 
And centuries have struggled toward its birth. 
So, in the man who sings, 
All of the voiceless horde 
>From the cold dawn of things 
Have their reward; 
All in whose pulses ran 
Blood that is his at last, 
>From the first stooping man 
Far in the winnowed past. 
Out of the tumult of their love and mating 
Each one created, seeing life was good-- 
Dumb, till at last the song that they were waiting 
Breaks like brave April thru a wintry wood.