Hardly in any common tender wise, With petting talk, light lips on her dear cheek, The love I mean my child will bear to speak, Loth of its own less image for disguise; But liefer will it floutingly devise, Using a favourite jester's mimic pique, Prompt, idle, by-names with their sense to seek, And takes for language laughing ironies. But she, as when some foreign tongue is heard, Familiar on our lips and closely known, We feel the every purport of each word When ignorant ears reach empty sound alone, So knows the core within each merry gird, So gives back such a meaning in her own. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE FOREST MAID by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT A STRANGE MEETING by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES RAIN ON A GRAVE by THOMAS HARDY EPITAPH UPON A CHILD THAT DIED by ROBERT HERRICK THE HABIT OF PERFECTION by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS A SHROPSHIRE LAD: 18 by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN SPRING'S WELCOME, FR. ALEXANDER AND CAMPASPE by JOHN LYLY |