C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Hester

WHEN maidens such as Hester die,

Their place ye may not well supply,

Though ye among a thousand try,

With vain endeavor.

A month or more hath she been dead,

Yet cannot I by force be led

To think upon the wormy bed

And her together.

A springy motion in her gait,

A rising step, did indicate

Of pride and joy no common rate,

That flushed her spirit.

I know not by what name beside

I shall it call: if ’twas not pride,

It was a joy to that allied,

She did inherit.

Her parents held the Quaker rule,

Which doth the human feeling cool;

But she was trained in Nature’s school—

Nature had blest her.

A waking eye, a prying mind,

A heart that stirs, is hard to bind;

A hawk’s keen sight ye cannot blind,

Ye could not Hester.