Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TWO SISTERS; BIRTHDAY VERSES, by AGNES MARY F. ROBINSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TWO SISTERS; BIRTHDAY VERSES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: And must I welcome in the day
Last Line: Though writ another way.
Alternate Author Name(s): Duclaux, Madame Emile; Darmesteter, Mary; Robinson, A. Mary F.
Subject(s): Birthdays; Sisters


AND must I welcome in the day,
Mabel, that wrongs us two --
That takes your childish years away
And buries mine anew?
The churlish day! I would not give
A quatrain to it, as I live,
But that it gave us you.

Wherefore, O day, I will forget
As best I can the wrong,
And strive in verses neatly set,
Smooth lines and ordered song,
To sing (as truly as who sings
The praise of other ruling kings)
A welcome loud and long.

But first of all be deaf a space
While I call back (in vain)
The presence and the dearer face
Of her whose closing reign
You triumph over. Ah, farewell
Dear Childhood! Listen, while I tell
Your beauties once again.

Dear banished Childhood! now to us
You seem a rarer thing
Than aught of good or glorious
The coming years can bring.
Take back these older selves again!
Bring Mab and Nannie in the lane
Playing at queen and king!

For you were Louis, Mabel, then,
And I was Antoinette.
You, tall and strong, a king of men;
I, less; but don't forget
I always showed at hint of fear
When your eyes would be wet!

Do you remember how we left
The shelter of the shed,
Our foes upon us right and left,
And tow'rds the duck-pond fled?
You shrank. "Fly, Louis!" I cried, "for best
Is honour!" ... Green waves heard the rest
Gurgling above my head.

But you were first at climbing trees,
At vaulting o'er the gate,
And you were not afraid of bees,
You rode the pony straight,
And once you took the fence, and then,
Laughing, you leapt it back again;
An Amazon of eight!

And you were kinder too than I,
For often when we played,
My taste for tears and tragedy
Would make your soul afraid.
Your pirates never felt the lash,
Your blackamoors would always wash
As white as any maid.

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.





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