A Fable for Critics

I never forget a face, but in your case I’d like to make an exception, You have made my heart feel a break, as one breaks an oaten supplication. Your smile may be warm, and your heart be kind, and I’d love you yet more If you did not frown, nor sip the vinegar cup beneath the cold sky’s store. O, nature thou dost spin strange fables, in mist and in rain there comes the light, Let the deepest shadows remind us, ‘Tis our heart’s delight.

And out on the wild frontiers, where vast natures play, You can feel the pulse of wonder, o’ercome the course of day.

So let hearts stretch out wide, under heaven’s embrace, For there’s much in the light and shadows, ‘Tis nature’s own grace.

• James Russell Lowell