At a Reading

The Sisters' Tragedy

by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

The spare Professor, grave and bald,
Began his paper. It was
called,
I think, "A Brief Historic Glance
At Russia, Germany,
and France."
A glance, but to my best belief
'Twas almost
anything but brief--
A wide survey, in which the earth
Was
seen before mankind had birth;
Strange monsters basked them in
the sun,
Behemoth, armored glyptodon,
And in the dawn's
unpractised ray
The transient dodo winged its way;
Then, by
degrees, through silt and slough,
We reached Berlin--I don't know
how.
The good Professor's monotone
Had turned me into
senseless stone
Instanter, but that near me sat
Hypatia in
her new spring hat,
Blue-eyed, intent, with lips whose bloom

Lighted the heavy-curtained room.
Hypatia--ah, what lovely
things
Are fashioned out of eighteen springs!
At first, in
sums of this amount,
The eighteen winters do not count.
Just
as my eyes were growing dim
With heaviness, I saw that slim,

Erect, elastic figure there,
Like a pond-lily taking air.
She
looked so fresh, so wise, so neat,
So altogether crisp and
sweet,
I quite forgot what Bismarck said,
And why the Emperor
shook his head,
And how it was Von Moltke's frown
Cost France
another frontier town.
The only facts I took away
From the
Professor's theme that day
Were these: a forehead broad and
low,
Such as the antique sculptures show;
A chin to Greek
perfection true;
Eyes of Astarte's tender blue;
A high
complexion without fleck
Or flaw, and curls about her neck.