For years he lived there in my father’s house,
My elder brother and my lover too,
My helper, and my hero: all my youth
Was one bright dawn about that sunny face.
Four years my senior was he; yet, withal,
So delicate in blunt and boyish ways,
And young in all things but in being kind,
He seem’d more near me. Ere I knew of it,
In budding girlhood even, he had pluck’d
My blushing love, and wore it on his heart;
And all my life took root where sprang his own.