Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE HORSE-LEECH'S DAUGHTER, by MARJORIE ALLEN SEIFFERT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE HORSE-LEECH'S DAUGHTER, by                    
First Line: The veterinary surgeon had a daughter
Last Line: And love is worth what it cost you, nothing more.
Alternate Author Name(s): Cypher, Angela; Hay, Elijah
Subject(s): Love - Nature Of


The veterinary surgeon had a daughter,
A woman wise and witty in her day,
I find her counsel when I go astray
In arid ethics, grateful as cold water.
Historians kept one word of hers, it brought her
Wide immortality. She cried, "Pay, pay!"
But what her name was, nobody can say
Or whether men, or books, or living taught her.

Whether she spoke of mercenary matters
Or love, her words bite cleanly to the core --
"Pay as you enter!" is written on heaven's door
The beggar may go in velvet or in tatters,
Hell's rubbish heap is the unpaid bills he scatters,
And love is worth what it cost you, nothing more.





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