310

"You think, because my life is rude
I take no note of sweetness:
I tell you love has naught to do
With meetness or unmeetness.

"Itself its best excuse, it asks
No leave of pride or fashion

315 When silken zone or homespun frock
It stirs with throbs of passion.

320

325

330

"You think me deaf and blind: you bring Your winning graces hither

As free as if from cradle-time

We two had played together.

"You tempt me with your laughing eyes, Your cheek of sundown's blushes,

A motion as of waving grain,

A music as of thrushes.

"The plaything of your summer sport,

The spells you weave around me

You cannot at your will undo,

Nor leave me as you found me.

"You go as lightly as you came,

Your life is well without me;
What care you that these hills will close
Like prison-walls about me?

"No mood is mine to seek a wife,
Or daughter for my mother:

335 Who loves you loses in that love
All power to love another!

340

345

350

"Nor frock nor tan can hide the man;
And see you not, my farmer,

How weak and fond a woman waits
Behind this silken armor?

"I love you: on that love alone,
And not my worth, presuming,
Will you not trust for summer fruit

The tree in May-day blooming?'

"Alone the hangbird overhead,

His hair-swung cradle straining, 355 Looked down to see love's miracle, The giving that is gaining.

360

"And so the farmer found a wife,
His mother found a daughter:

There looks no happier home than hers

On pleasant Bearcamp Water.

"Flowers spring to blossom where she walks

The careful ways of duty;

Our hard, stiff lines of life with her

Are flowing curves of beauty.

365"Our homes are cheerier for her sake,
Our door-yards brighter blooming,
And all about the social air
Is sweeter for her coming.

370

"Unspoken homilies of peace
Her daily life is preaching;
The still refreshment of the dew
Is her unconscious teaching.

"And never tenderer hand than hers
Unknits the brow of ailing;

375 Her garments to the sick man's ear
Have music in their trailing.

380

"And wher, in pleasant harvest moons,
"The youthful huskers gather,
Or sleigh-drives on the mountain ways
Defy the winter weather,-

"In sugar-camps, when south and warm
The winds of March are blowing,
And sweetly from its thawing veins
The maple's blood is flowing,

385 "In summer, where some lilied pond Its virgin zone is bearing,

390

Or where the ruddy autumn fire
Lights up the apple-paring, —

"The coarseness of a ruder time
Her finer mirth displaces,
A subtler sense of pleasure fills

Each rustic sport she graces.

"Her presence lends its warmth and health

To all who come before it.

395 If woman lost us Eden, such

400

405

410

As she alone restore it.

"For larger life and wiser aims
The farmer is her debtor;
Who holds to his another's heart
Must needs be worse or better.

Through her his civic service shows
A purer-toned ambition;

No double consciousness divides
The man and politician.

"In party's doubtful ways he trusts
Her instincts to determine;

At the loud polls, the thought of her
Recalls Christ's Mountain Sermon.

"He owns her logic of the heart,
And wisdom of unreason,
Supplying, while he doubts and weighs,
The needed word in season.

"He sees with pride her richer thought,
Her fancy's freer ranges;

415 And love thus deepened to respect
Is proof against all changes.

420

"And if she walks at ease in ways
His feet are slow to travel,
And if she reads with cultured eyes
What his may scarce unravel,

"Still clearer, for her keener sight
Of beauty and of wonder,
He learns the meaning of the hills
He dwelt from childhood under.

66

425 And higher, warmed with summer lights, Or winter-crowned and hoary,

430

The ridged horizon lifts for him
Its inner veils of glory.

"He has his own free, bookless lore,
The lessons nature taught him,
The wisdom which the woods and hills
And toiling men have brought him:

"The steady force of will whereby Her flexile grace seems sweeter; 435 The sturdy counterpoise which makes Her woman's life completer:

440

"A latent fire of soul which lacks
No breath of love to fan it;

And wit, that, like his native brooks,
Plays over solid granite.

"How dwarfed against his manliness
She sees the poor pretension,
The wants, the aims, the follies, born
Of fashion and convention!

445"How life behind its accidents

Stands strong and self-sustaining,
The human fact transcending all
The losing and the gaining.