A Summer Morning Picture

by: Elizabeth Oakes-Smith (1806-1893)

The Sabbath morning from the night awoke
All sunshine crowned: rough men disdaining toil
Had cleared their brows from work-day's hardening moil
And by the fountain left the cove'd yoke.
Through morning-glory and the hollyhock,
And rich nasturtium, shading with their coil
The cottage window, and the heated soil,
Aslant the white board floor the sunshine broke,
And left a flowery tracery in the sheen.
This inward gleam the children newly kempt,
And genial matron, calm from work-day ways,
Who sits with stately grace her flock between
And sings a Sabbath hymm, meseems, exempt
Like these from strife, Seraphim Legions join the praise.






An Incident

by: Elizabeth Oakes-Smith (1806-1893)

A simple thing, yet chancing as it did,
When life was bright with its illusive dreams,
A pledge and promise seemed beneath it hid
The ocean lay before me, tinged with beams
That lingering draped the west, a wavering stir;
And at my feet down fell a worn gray quill:
And eagle, high above the darkling fir,
With steady flight, seemed there to take his fill
Of that pure ether breathed by him alone.
O noble bird! why didst thou loose for me
Thy eagle plume? still unessayed, unknown,
Must be that pathway fearless winged by thee:
I ask it not, no lofty flight be mine;
I would not soar like thee, in loneliness to pine!