Love or Fancy
"TELL me, Mother, what this may be,
What is this that has come to me?—
"I have reasonless joys and causeless fears,
Purposeless pain, and trivial tears.
"For one footstep I listen all day,
When I hear it I turn away.
"Flutters my heart like a wounded dove,
Tell me, Mother, can this be love?"
"Sooth, it is hard for a maid to say
If Love or Fancy has passed her way:
"Close akin, of the self-same mother,
Fancy, indeed, is Love's twin-brother.
"Fancy's an imp and a pixie elf,
And yet he can change to Love's true self.
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