Child of my parents! Sister of my soul!
Thanks in sincerest verse have been elsewhere
Poured out for all the early tenderness
Which I from thee imbibed; and 'tis most true
That later seasons owed to thee no less;
For, spite of thy sweet influence, and the touch
Of kindred hands that opened out the springs
Of genial thought in childhood, and in spite
Of all that, unassisted, I had marked
In life, or nature, of those charms minute,