Two Sisters
And often when I was not well
You'd bring to give me ease
Such tempting gifts! a crab-apple,
Some unripe pods of peas,
Nasturtium berries, heavy bread
That you had made yourself, you said.
And gum from damson trees !
How sorrowful you used to look.
And mind much more than I,
When grown-up people showered rebuke
On sins that made you cry.
Ah ! you were good and I was not :
What made you weep would make me plot
Revenge and Tragedy !
You used to think me very wise,
I thought you very fair.
For each seemed in the other's eyes
A creature strange and rare.
All that I read I told to you.
And rhymed you strings of verses too
About your golden hair.
Verses more eloquent by far
Than these I write to-day.
Your either eye was then a star.
Your cheek the bloom of May.
I twined flower-fancies round your name-
Yet those and these both mean the same
Though writ another way.
75
