To a Deaf and Dumb Little Girl

Like a loose island on the wide expanse,
Unconscious floating on the fickle sea,
Herself her all, she lives in privacy ;
Her waking life as lonely as a trance,
Doom'd to behold the universal dance,
And never hear the music which expounds
The solemn step, coy slide, the merry bounds.
The vague, mute language of the countenance
In vain for her I smooth my antic rhyme ;
She cannot hear it, all her little being
Concentred in her solitary seeing —
What can she know of beauteous or sublime ?
And yet methinks she looks so calm and good,
God must be with her in her solitude.