Your mother, whom the mirror-world has claimed,
Plucks at the tell-tale hairs with violent hand
And thinks time backward to a brassy song,
Rolling the grape of hysteria under her tongue.
Your father, in whom two ambitions rave,
Like stations wrangling on the foreign-wave
For spheres of influence, loathes the heart that blends
His guilty love; but the quarrel never ends.
You are of nature's bright unlucky brood,
Born of the drop of talent in your blood
Wherewith the gates of mystery are oiled.
Mortals will touch you and your taste be spoiled,
Witches in metals test you. I observe
Defeat, taking short cuts from nerve to nerve,
Climb through the narrow transom of your will;
And I weep, for having made you vulnerable.
My poor child whose terrors never cease,
Here is my pity penny. Buy you peace.