Charles Strong

SHE grieved that her loved season’s pensive hue,

Its colors sadly gay, so soon should fade,

And she not seek, in thoughtful mood, the glade,

Nor from gray steep the mellow landscape view:

Others too grieved, that one so fond, so true,

Marked not with them each sudden gleam and shade,

The leaf’s light fall, the stillness deeper made

By rustling breeze, or bird forlorn and few.

O pure delight, when minds are well agreed,

To commune thus with WOMAN!—early taught

In Nature’s page devotedly to read,—

Lady, with thee! who in thy vernal hour,

Like some heaven-favored plant, art richly fraught

With Wisdom’s golden fruit and Beauty’s flower.