LXXIX.
             
        ‘More than my brothers are to me,’–
            Let this not vex thee, noble heart!
            I know thee of what force thou art
        To hold the costliest love in fee.

        But thou and I are one in kind,
            As moulded like in Nature’s mint;
            And hill and wood and field did print
        The same sweet forms in either mind.

        For us the same cold streamlet curl’d
            Thro’ all his eddying coves; the same
            All winds that roam the twilight came
        In whispers of the beauteous world.

        At one dear knee we proffer’d vows,
            One lesson from one book we learn’d,
            Ere childhood’s flaxen ringlet turn’d
        To black and brown on kindred brows.

        And so my wealth resembles thine,
            But he was rich where I was poor,
            And he supplied my want the more
        As his unlikeness fitted mine.