I quote it as giving that lesson which my humble prose would never
teach:
1. After our child's untroubled breath
Up to the Father took its way,
And on our home the shade of death,
Like a long twilight, haunting lay,
And friends came round with us to weep
Her little spirit's swift remove,
This story of the Alpine sheep
Was told to us by one we love:
2. They, in the valley's sheltering care,
Soon crop the meadow's tender prime,
And, when the sod grows brown and bare,
The shepherd strives to make them climb
To airy shelves of pastures green
That hang along the mountain-side,
Where grass and flowers together lean,
And down through mist the sunbeams glide.
3. But nought can tempt the timid things
That steep and rugged path to try,
Though sweet the shepherd calls and sings,
And seared below the pastures lie;
Till in his arms their lambs he takes
Along the dizzy verge to go,--
Then, heedless of the rifts and breaks,
They follow on o'er rock and snow;
4. And, in those pastures lifted fair,
More dewy soft than lowland mead,
The shepherd drops his lowly care,
And sheep and lambs together feed.
This parable by Nature breathed
Blew on me as the south wind free
O'er frozen brooks that float unsheathed
From icy thralldom to the sea.
5. A blissful vision, through the night,
Would all my happy senses sway,
Of the Good Shepherd on the height
Or climbing up the starry way,
Holding our little lamb asleep;
And like the burthen of the sea,
Sounded that voice along the deep,
Saying, "Arise, and follow me."