[W.W.]

A little maid, of summers four-- Did you compute her years,-- And yet how infinitely more To me her age appears:

I mark the sweet child's serious air, At her unplayful play,-- The tiny doll she mothers there And lulls to sleep away,

Grows--'neath the grave similitude-- An infant real, to me, And she a saint of motherhood In hale maturity.

So, pausing in my lonely round, And all unseen of her, I stand uncovered--her profound And abject worshipper.

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