Two Sisters [Mary Morgan and Charlotte Bent][;] A Wanderer's Farewell

1. 1To know, to esteem, to love,--and then to part--
2. 2Makes up life's tale to many a feeling heart;
3. 3Alas for some abiding-place of love,
4. 4O'er which my spirit, like the mother dove,
5. 5Might brood with warming wings!
6. 6O fair! O kind!
7. 7Sisters in blood, yet each with each intwined
8. 8More close by sisterhood of heart and mind!
9. 9Me disinherited in form and face
10. 10By nature, and mishap of outward grace;
11. 11Who, soul and body, through one guiltless fault
12. 12Waste daily with the poison of sad thought,
13. 13Me did you soothe, when solace hoped I none!
14. 14And as on unthaw'd ice the winter sun,
15. 15Though stern the frost, though brief the genial day,
16. 16You bless my heart with many a cheerful ray;
17. 17For gratitude suspends the heart's despair,
18. 18Reflecting bright though cold your image there.
19. 19Nay more! its music by some sweeter strain
20. 20Makes us live o'er our happiest hours again,
21. 21Hope re-appearing dim in memory's guise--
22. 22Even thus did you call up before mine eyes
23. 23Two dear, dear Sisters, prized all price above,
24. 24Sisters, like you, with more than sisters' love;
25. 25So like you they, and so in you were seen
26. 26Their relative statures, tempers, looks, and mien,
27. 27That oft, dear ladies! you have been to me
28. 28At once a vision and reality.
29. 29Sight seem'd a sort of memory, and amaze
30. 30Mingled a trouble with affection's gaze.

1. 31Oft to my eager soul I whisper blame,
2. 32A Stranger bid it feel the Stranger's shame--
3. 33My eager soul, impatient of the name,
4. 34No strangeness owns, no Stranger's form descries:
5. 35The chidden heart spreads trembling on the eyes.
6. 36First-seen I gazed, as I would look you thro'!
7. 37My best-beloved regain'd their youth in you,--
8. 38And still I ask, though now familiar grown,
9. 39Are you for their sakes dear, or for your own?
10. 40O doubly dear! may Quiet with you dwell!

1. 41In Grief I love you, yet I love you well!
2. 42Hope long is dead to me! an orphan's tear
3. 43Love wept despairing o'er his nurse's bier.
4. 44Yet still she flutters o'er her grave's green slope:
5. 45For Love's despair is but the ghost of Hope!

1. 46Sweet Sisters! were you placed around one hearth
2. 47With those, your other selves in shape and worth,
3. 48Far rather would I sit in solitude,
4. 49Fond recollections all my fond heart's food,
5. 50And dream of you, sweet Sisters! (ah! not mine!)
6. 51And only dream of you (ah! dream and pine!)
7. 52Than boast the presence and partake the pride,
8. 53And shine in the eye, of all the world beside.