Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith (1806–1893)

ALL day, like some sweet bird, content to sing

In its small cage, she moveth to and fro;

And ever and anon will upward spring

To her sweet lips, fresh from the fount below,

The murmured melody of pleasant thought,

Unconscious uttered, gentle-toned and low.

Light household duties, evermore inwrought

With placid fancies of one trusting heart

That lives but in her smile, and turns

From life’s cold seeming and the busy mart,

With tenderness, that heavenward ever yearns

To be refreshed where one pure altar burns.

Shut out from hence, the mockery of life,

Thus liveth she content, the meek, fond, trusting wife!