My Twins
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
Of twin daughters I'm the mother -
Lord! how I was proud of them;
Each the image of the other,
Like two lilies on one stem;
But while May, my first-born daughter,
Was angelic from the first,
Different as wine and water,
Maude, my second, seemed accurst.
I'm a tender-hearted dame,
Military is my bent;
Thus my pretty dears can claim
For their Pa the Regiment.
As they say: to err is human;
But though lots of love I've had,
I'm an ordinary women,
Just as good as I am bad.
Good and bad should find their level,
So I often wonder why
May was angel, Maude was devil,
Yet between the two was I.
May, they say, has taken vows -
Sister Mary, pure and sweet;
Maudie's in a bawdy house,
Down in Mariposa Street.
It's not natural I'm thinking,
One should pray, the other curse;
I'm so worried I am drinking,
Which is making matters worse.
Yet my daughters love each other,
And I love them equal well;
Saint and sinner call me mother . . .
Ain't heredity just hell?
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 57 sec read
- 39 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABABACAC DXDXEFEF GHGHXIXI JKJKALAL |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 933 |
Words | 182 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
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"My Twins" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 12 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/32313/my-twins>.
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