Well, twenty years have passed since then: My sister now, a stately wife Still fair, looks back in peace and sees The longer half of life-- The longer half of prosperous life, With little grief, or fear, or fret: She, loved and loving long ago, Is loved and loving yet. A husband honourable, brave, Is her main wealth in all the world: And next to him one like herself, One daughter golden-curled: Fair image of her own fair youth, As beautiful and as serene, With almost such another love As her own love has been. Yet, though of world-wide charity, And in her home most tender dove, Her treasure and her heart are stored In the home-land of love. She thrives, God's blessed husbandry; Most like a vine which full of fruit Doth cling and lean and climb toward heaven, While earth still binds its root. I sit and watch my sister's face: How little altered since the hours When she, a kind, light-hearted girl, Gathered her garden flowers: Her song just mellowed by regret For having teased me with her talk; Then all-forgetful as she heard One step upon the walk. While I? I sat alone and watched; My lot in life, to live alone In mine own world of interests, Much felt, but little shown. Not to be first: how hard to learn That lifelong lesson of the past; Line graven on line and stroke on stroke: But, thank God, learned at last. So now in patience I possess My soul year after tedious year, Content to take the lowest place, The place assigned me here. Yet sometimes, when I feel my strength Most weak, and life most burdensome, I lift mine eyes up to the hills From whence my help shall come: Yea, sometimes still I lift my heart To the Archangelic trumpet-burst, When all deep secrets shall be shown, And many last be first. DEAD HOPE. Hope new born one pleasant morn Died at even; Hope dead lives nevermore, No, not in heaven. If his shroud were but a cloud To weep itself away; Or were he buried underground To sprout some day! But dead and gone is dead and gone Vainly wept upon. Nought we place above his face To mark the spot, But it shows a barren place In our lot. A DAUGHTER OF EVE. A fool I was to sleep at noon, And wake when night is chilly Beneath the comfortless cold moon; A fool to pluck my rose too soon, A fool to snap my lily. My garden-plot I have not kept; Faded and all-forsaken, I weep as I have never wept: Oh it was summer when I slept, It's winter now I waken.