My birches are the girlhood of the glen. Amid the pines and darker hemlocks there They hold the eye enchanted, shimmering fair Like maidens in a throng of sombre men. They wait upon the borders of the fen As mercy waits on foulness; to the air That shudders from a cave where serpents pair, They dance and dimple till it smiles again. Where all is delicate, the essence they And paradigm of daintiness demure; The heart of laughter where the whole is gay, The soul of purity where all is pure, Slight raiment needing in the honest day, So of their inner whiteness are they sure. |