Mary Thacher Higginson

  • We wondered why he always turned aside
    When mirth and gladness filled the brimming days:
    Who else so fit as he for pleasure’s ways?
    Men thought him frozen by a selfish pride;
    But that his voice was music none denied,
    Or that his smile was like the sun’s...

  • In shining groups, each stem a pearly ray,
    Weird flecks of light within the shadowed wood,
    They dwell aloof, a spotless sisterhood.
    No Angelus, except the wild bird’s lay,
    Awakes these forest nuns; yet night and day
    Their heads are bent, as if in prayerful...

  • The fields were silent, and the woodland drear,
        The moon had set, and clouds hid all the stars;
    And blindly, when a footfall met my ear,
        I reached across the bars.

    And swift as thought this hand was clasped in thine,
        Though darkness hung...

  •     the ghosts of flowers went sailing
        Through the dreamy autumn air,—
    The gossamer wings of the milkweed brown,
    And the sheeny silk of the thistle-down;
        But there was no bewailing,
        And never a hint of despair.

        From the mountain-...