In a tiny whitewashed cottage,
Half-covered with roses wild,
His cheerful-faced old gardener dwelt
Alone with his motherless child;
The Squire owned the very floor he trod,
The grass in his garden lot,
The poor man had only this one little lamb
Yet he envied the rich man not.

Poor was the gardener, yet rich withal
In this priceless pearl of a girl,
So perfect a form, so faultless a face
Never brightened the halls of an Earl;
Her eyes were two fathomless stars of light,
And they shone on the Squire day by day,
Till their warm and perilous splendor
So melted his pride away,

That he fain would have taken this pretty pet lamb
To dwell in his stately fold,
To fetter it fast with a jeweled chain,
And cage it with bars of gold;
But this coy little lamb loved its freedom,
Not so free was she, though, to be true,
But, oh, the dainty and shy little lamb
Well her master's voice she knew.

'Twas vain for the Squire the story to tell
Of his riches and high descent,
As it fell into one rosy shell of an ear