Poem by 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.

1. Fancies about a Rosebud, Pressed in an Old Copy of Spenser
2. So May It Be, But Let It Not Be So
3. Song (All things are sad)
4. Why Should We ever Weary of This Life?
5. Verse Cannot Say How Beautiful Thou Art

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