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. Sestet
2. The Sisters' Tragedy
3. Hesperides
4. A Petition
5. When the Sultan Goes to Ispahan

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

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