SISTER. <br />Through the house what busy joy, <br />Just because the infant boy <br />Has a tiny tooth to show. <br />I have got a double row, <br />All as white, and all as small; <br />Yet no one cares for mine at all. <br />He can say but half a word, <br />Yet that single sound's preferred <br />To all the words that I can say <br />In the longest summer day. <br />He cannot walk, yet if he put <br />With mimic motion out his foot, <br />As if he thought he were advancing, <br />It's prized more than my best dancing. <br /> <br /> <br />BROTHER. <br />Sister, I know, you jesting are, <br />Yet O! of jealousy beware. <br />If the smallest seed should be <br />In your mind of jealousy, <br />It will spring, and it will shoot, <br />Till it bear the baneful fruit. <br />I remember you, my dear, <br />Young as is this infant here. <br />There was not a tooth of those <br />Your pretty even ivory rows, <br />But as anxiously was watched, <br />Till it burst its shell new hatched, <br />As if it a Phoenix were, <br />Or some other wonder rare. <br />So when you began to walk- <br />So when you began to talk- <br />As now, the same encomiums past. <br />'Tis not fitting this should last <br />Longer than our infant days; <br />A child is fed with milk and praise.<br /><br />Charles Lamb<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-first-tooth-2/
