How comes it, Flora, that, whenever we <br />Play cards together, you invariably, <br />However the pack parts, <br />Still hold the Queen of Hearts? <br /> <br />I've scanned you with a scrutinizing gaze, <br />Resolved to fathom these your secret ways: <br />But, sift them as I will, <br />Your ways are secret still. <br /> <br />I cut and shuffle; shuffle, cut, again; <br />But all my cutting, shuffling, proves in vain: <br />Vain hope, vain forethought too; <br />The Queen still falls to you. <br /> <br />I dropped her once, prepense; but, ere the deal <br />Was dealt, your instinct seemed her loss to feel: <br />'There should be one card more,' <br />You said, and searched the floor. <br /> <br />I cheated once; I made a private notch <br />In Heart-Queen's back, and kept a lynx-eyed watch; <br />Yet such another back <br />Deceived me in the pack: <br /> <br />The Queen of Clubs assumed by arts unknown <br />An imitative dint that seemed my own; <br />This notch, not of my doing, <br />Misled me to my ruin. <br /> <br />It baffles me to puzzle out the clue, <br />Which must be skill, or craft, or luck in you: <br />Unless, indeed, it be <br />Natural affinity.<br /><br />Christina Georgina Rossetti<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-queen-of-hearts-3/
