The Rothers
But these two girls I never hated,
I thought them better than their race;
Who would not think a curse out-dated
When from so fresh and young a face
The Rother eyes looked frankly out,
In the Rother smile no Rother's doubt?
Well, they were young, and wealthy, and fair;
It seemed not long since they were born,
When Florence married Lawrence Dare,
Then Maud, alas! Sir Thomas Thorn—
A bitter, dark, bad, cruel man—
Sir Thomas, now, of the Rother clan.
For now we come to the very root
Of the passionate rancour I keep at heart
Flowering in words (but the bitter fruit
Is still unripe for its sterner part)
Well, Maud, too, married. Miss May was free
To go wherever she wished to be.
Homeless, after sixteen years
Of sacrifice! Where could she go?
But she, she smiled, choked back her tears,
"Of course," she said, "it must be so.
So kind, her girls, to let her come
Three months to each in her married home!"
And first at Rother with the Thorns
In her old home she stayed a guest;
*****
But must I think of all the scorns
That made your age a bitter jest,—
Whose memory like a star appears
Thro' the violent dark of that House of tears?
Your Maud was changed;— a craven slave
To her unloving husband now;
The bitter words she could not brave,
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