The Angelus

Not far from Paris, in fair Fontainebleau,
A lovely memory-haunted hamlet lies,
Whose tender spell makes captive, and defies
Forgetfulness. The peasants come and go —

Their backs too used to stoop, and patient sow
The harvest which a narrow want supplies —
Even as when, Earth's pathos in his eyes,
Millet dwelt here, companion of their woe.

Ah, Barbizon! With thorns, not laurels, crowned,
He looked thy sorrows in the face, and found —

Vital as seed warm-nestled in the sod —
The hidden sweetness at the heart of pain;
Trusting thy sun and dew, thy wind and rain —
At home with Nature, and at one with God!