As A Tree My Sin Stands To

Tread Softly! All The Earth Is Holy Ground.

Obedience Is The Fruit Of Faith.

To Her Whose Heart Is My Heart's Quiet Home, To My First Love, My Mother, On Whose Knee I Learnt Love-lore That Is Not Troublesome.

She Gave Up Beauty In Her Tender Youth, Gave All Her Hope And Joy And Pleasant Ways; She Covered Up Her Eyes Lest They Should Gaze On Vanity, And Chose The Bitter Truth.

I Wish I Could Remember The First Day, First Hour, First Moment Of Your Meeting Me; If Bright Or Dim The Season It Might Be; Summer Or Winter For Aught I Can Say. So, Unrecorded Did It Slip Away, So Blind Was I To See And To Forsee, So Dull To Mark The Budding Of My Tree That Would Not Blossom, Yet, For Many A May.