Page:Counter-currents, Agnes Repplier, 1916.djvu/25

Cost of Modern Sentiment

"I have shut my little sister in from life and light

(For a rose, for a ribbon, for a wreath across my hair),

I have made her restless feet still until the night,

Locked from sweets of summer, and from wild spring air:

I who ranged the meadow-lands, free from sun to sun,

Free to sing, and pull the buds, and watch the far wings fly,

I have bound my sister till her playing-time is done,—

Oh, my little sister, was it I?—was it I?

"I have robbed my sister of her day of maidenhood

(For a robe, for a feather, for a trinket's restless spark),

Shut from Love till dusk shall fall, how shall she know good,

How shall she pass scatheless through the sinlit dark?

I who could be innocent, I who could be gay,

I who could have love and mirth before the light went by,

I have put my sister in her mating-time away,—

Sister, my young sister, was it I?—was it I?

"I have robbed my sister of the lips against her breast

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