Maud Muller, on a summer's day, Raked the meadows sweet with hay. Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth Of simple beauty and rustic health.

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, And Maud was left in the field alone. But the lawyers smiled that afternoon, When he hummed in court an old love-tune

He wedded a wife of richest dower, Who lived for fashion, as he for power. Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow, He watched a picture come and go: And s…

A manly form at her side she saw, And joy was duty and love was law. Then she took up her burden of life again, Saying only, 'It might have been.'

And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds, His belly close to ground. I see the blade, Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade

Her robe is a cloud, her face a flower; Her balcony, glimmering with the bright spring dew, Is either the tip of earth's Jade Mountain, Or a moon-edged roof of…

I fill this cup to one made up Of loveliness alone, A woman, of her gentle sex The seeming paragon; To whom the better elements And kindly stars have given A f…