James Russell Lowell

A Feeling

    The flowers and the grass to me
  Are eloquent reproachfully;
  For would they wave so pleasantly
  Or look so fresh and fair,
  If a man, cunning, hollow, mean,
  Or one in anywise unclean,
  Were looking on them there?

    No; he hath grown so foolish-wise
  He cannot see with childhood's eyes;
  He hath forgot that purity
  And lowliness which are the key
  Of Nature's mysteries;
  No; he hath wandered off so long
  From his own place of birth,
  That he hath lost his mother-tongue,
  And, like one come from far-off lands,
  Forgetting and forgot, he stands
  Beside his mother's hearth.