Poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Heredity

A soldier of the Cromwell stamp,
With sword and psalm-book by his side,
At home alike in church and camp:
Austere he lived, and smileless died.

But she, a creature soft and fine—
From Spain, some say, some say from France;
Within her veins leapt blood like wine—
She led her Roundhead lord a dance!

In Grantham church they lie asleep;
Just where, the verger may not know.
Strange that two hundred years should keep
The old ancestral fires aglow!

In me these two have met again;
To each my nature owes a part:
To one, the cool and reasoning brain;
To one, the quick, unreasoning heart.

1. The Undiscovered Country
2. Palabras Cariñosas
3. Quatrains
4. Sweetheart, Sigh No More
5. Hesperides

Thomas Hardy Heredity ("I am the family face")

Print

1237 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version