A LITTLE SISTER.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 245, 26 September 1884, Page 3

A LITTLE SISTER.

[By George Eliot.] I cannot choose but think upon the time When our two lives grew like two buds that kiss At lightest thrill from the bee’s swinging chime, Because the one so near the other is. He was the elder, and a little man Of forty inches, bound to show no dread, And I the girl that, pu jpy like, now ran, Now lagged behind my brother’s larger tread. I held him wise, and when he talked to me Of snakes and birds, and which God loved the best, I thought his knowledge marked the boundary Where men grew blind, though angels knew the rest. If he said “ Hush !” I tried to hold my breath; Whenever he said “ Come!” I stepped in faith.

School parted us; we never found again That childish world where our two spirits mingled Like scents from varying roses that remain One sweetness, nor can evermore be singled; Yet the twin habit of that early time Lingered for long about the heart and tongue; We had been natives of one happy clime, And its dear accent to our utterance clung ; Till the dire yeais, whose awful name is change, Had grasped our souls, still yearning in divorce, And, pitiless, shaped them into two forms that range; Two elements which sever their life’s course; But were another childhood world my share, I would be born a little sister there.