CHAPTER 2. MAID OF THE MORNING
Nathaniel rested for a while,
Concluding he had dreamed the child
While morning blue replaced the dawn
Wherein the fancied scene was borne
His hunger for a piece of bread
Replaced the longing dawn had fed
And yet his quite prosaic mind
Distracted, could not be resigned.
A coltish girl came drifting past
Her feet could scarcely stir the grass
With hair unbound and startled eyes
Nathaniel watched her in surmise
And wondered if she knew the child
(Her garment was an allied style)
But as he moved she backed away
He didn’t speak. What could he say?
In vague discomfort at the scene
(He thought her in her middle teens)
Nathaniel nodded, gravely, twice
For courtesy, that should suffice.
The girl considered, head inclined,
And then she smiled in mute reply
Braiding withies by the stream,
Absorbed, withdrawn into a dream.
A butterfly with shimmered hues
Fluttered, floated into view,
Nathaniel watched it come to rest
Upon her shoulder; caught his breath,
For as the sunlight lent her wings
His mind had seen what magic brings
As if the girl’s still-childish face
Had shone with sudden angel’s grace.
A fancy struck Nathaniel then
That beauty’s promises might send
A future-speaking messenger
To light the way, a harbinger;
But as he smiled in small degree
The girl arose, and turned, and she
Went drifting off along the path
Her bare feet silent in the grass.