(After a Painting by Hugo Ballin)
Something impelled her from the hearth;
Whispers and winds drew her along;
But still, unconscious of the earth,
She read her book of golden Song.
Old legends stirred her as she read
Of life victoriously unfurled,
Of glories gone but never dead,
And Beauty that redeemed the world.
"Oh Songs," she sighed, "your world was fair;
My own holds no such lovely things;
No glow, no magic anywhere—"
And then, a start—a flash of wings...
And, with the rush of surging seas,
Over her swept the world's replies:
The lyric hills, the buoyant breeze
And all the sudden singing skies!