Read "The Sick-Room" by Maria Lowell online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
A spirit is treading the earth, / As wind treads the vibrating string; / I know thy feet so beautiful, / Thy punctual feet, O Spring!
They slide from far-off mountains, / As slides the untouched snow; / They move over deepening meadows, / As vague cloud-shadows blow.
Thou wilt not enter the chamber, / The door stands open in vain; / Thou art pluming the wands of cherry
To lattice the window pane.
Thou flushest the sunken orchard
With the lift of thy rosy wing; / The peach will not part with her sunrise
Though great noon-bells should ring.
O life, and light, and gladness, / Tumultuous everywhere!
O pain and benumbing sadness, / That brood in the heavy air!
Here the fire alone is busy, / And wastes, like the fever's heat, / The wood that enshrined past summers, / Past summers as bounteous as fleet.
The beautiful hanging gardens
That rocked in the morning wind, / And sheltered a dream of Faery, / And life so timid and kind, / The shady choir of the bobolink, / The race-course of squirrels gay --
They are changed into trembling smoke-wreaths, / And a heap of ashes gray.