Hidden

     Where is my Little One, where?
Southward I look in each lovely spot
     My mute eyes asking: Where?
I look in the west, I see her not.
     In the east, she is not there,
And along the north ask arbor and grot,
     Where is my Little One? Where?

     I have gleams of her beautiful hair;
A sun-steeped cloud in the golden west
     Has caught the hue of her hair;
The sea’s white foam has the swell of her breast,
     The stars have her eye-light rare,
O’er the cast in morning’s glory drest,
     I have gleams of her beautiful hair!

     Her smile is in all the air;
The odorous breath of the fervid south,
     The caress of the tinted air,
Are snatched from the curve of her sweet little mouth,
     From her white arms flashing bare;
The stag and the earth seem conscious, both,
     Her smile is in all the air.

     Return her to my prayer!
O hollow heavens! implored in vain,
     With longings of more than prayer;
O sea! thou lion that smoothed my mane
     When she came to thy rocky lair,
Earth, sky, or ocean, ho o’er hath ta’en,
     Return her to my prayer!

     Ha! ho! I laugh at my care!
For now I have found where she nestles away,
     Where she hides, to laugh at my care,
Down in my Old Tower mossy and gray,
     Laughing and loving and fair;
Outward her glances like sunbeams play;
     Ha! Ho! I laugh at my care!