I  HAD  a  little  daughter,

And  she  was  given  to  me
To  lead  me  gently  backward

To  the  Heavenly  Father's  knee,
That  I,  by  the  force  of  nature.
Might  in  some  dim  wise  divine
The  depth  of  His  infinite  patience

To  this  wayward  soul  of  mine.
I  know  not  how  others  saw  her,

But  to  me  she  was  wholly  fair,
And  the  light  of  the  heaven  she  came  from

Still  lingered  and  gleamed  in  her  hair ;
For  it  was  as  wavy  and  golden,

And  as  many  changes  took
As  the  shadows  of  sun-gilt  ripples

On  the  yellow  bed  of  a  brook.
To  what  can  I  liken  her  smiling

Upon  me,  her  kneeling  lover,
How  it  leaped  from  her  lips  to  her  eyelids.
And  dimpled  her  wholly  over,


28o  JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL.
Till  her  outstretched  hands  smiled  also,
And  I  almost  seemed  to  see

The  very  heart  of  her  mother

Sending  sun  through  her  veins  to  me !


She  had  been  with  us  scarce  a  twelvemonth,

And  it  hardly  seemed  a  day.
When  a  troop  of  wandering  angels

Stole  my  little  daughter  away ;
Or  perhaps  those  heavenly  Zingari

But  loosed  the  hampering  strings.
And  when  they  had  opened  her  cage-door,

My  little  bird  used  her  wings.
