TO---
True! She had been in city gay,
And seen whate'er its pomps could show
To win her youthful heart away,
The courtly ball, the fluttering beau.
And She hath form and face as fair
As sculpture asks or painting wills;
Yet, spite of all that flattered there,
Her heart was 'mid her native hills.
Once more, amid those native hills,
A moorland girl, behold her bound,
While all her heart with pleasure fills
At rural sight, or rural sound;
Whether She lift her eye to note
The kite, high circling on the gale,
Or pause to catch the tones that float
From hidden cushat down the dale.
Or if She climb the mountain side
To pluck her favorite heath again,
Or down the alder-valley glide,
Or linger in the fir-tree glen,
In bliss—the haunts of pomp and pelf
May never know—each moment wheels,
While sisters, spirits like herself,
Share and enhance the bliss She feels.
Sweet bud of beauty! moorland girl!
Still, still hold on thy dream-like race,
Far from the city's heartless whirl,
And all the tribes of common-place
Still mould thine own wild paradise,
Enjoying—living—loving thus—
And wheresoe'er thy presence is,
Shall still be paradise to Us.
