Why should I not talk thus? Go bid the flowers

Keep back their perfume; then, perchance, may souls,

All sweet with blooming love, keep back sweet words.

I love him.—Shrink not, sister. Hear you must.—

And say not I am weak. Should I not grow

Far weaker, holding in a love so strong?

II.

For years he lived there in my father’s house,

My elder brother and my lover too,

My helper, and my hero: all my youth