---

Christina Georgina Rossetti - Lady Maggie
Work rating: Low

You must not call me Maggie, you must not call me Dear,
  For I`m Lady of the Manor now stately to see;
And if there comes a babe, as there may some happy year,
  `Twill be little lord or lady at my knee.

Oh, but what ails you, my sailor cousin Phil,
  That you shake and turn white like a cockcrow ghost?
You`re as white as I turned once down by the mill,
  When one told me you and ship and crew were lost:

Philip my playfellow, when we were boy and girl
  (It was the Miller`s Nancy told it to me), 
Philip with the merry life in lip and curl,
  Philip my playfellow drowned in the sea!

I thought I should have fainted, but I did not faint;
  I stood stunned at the moment, scarcely sad,
Till I raised my wail of desolate complaint
  For you, my cousin, brother, all I had.

They said I looked so pale—some say so fair—
  My lord stopped in passing to soothe me back to life:
I know I missed a ringlet from my hair
  Next morning; and now I am his wife. 

Look at my gown, Philip, and look at my ring,
  I`m all crimson and gold from top to toe:
All day long I sit in the sun and sing,
  Where in the sun red roses blush and blow.

And I`m the rose of roses says my lord;
  And to him I`m more than the sun in the sky,
While I hold him fast with the golden cord
  Of a curl, with the eyelash of an eye.

His mother said `fie,` and his sisters cried `shame,`
  His highborn ladies cried `shame` from their place: 
They said `fie` when they only heard my name,
  But fell silent when they saw my face.

Am I so fair, Philip? Philip, did you think
  I was so fair when we played boy and girl,
Where blue forget-me-nots bloomed on the brink
  Of our stream which the mill-wheel sent a whirl?

If I was fair then sure I`m fairer now,
  Sitting where a score of servants stand,
With a coronet on high days for my brow
  And almost a sceptre for my hand. 

You`re but a sailor, Philip, weatherbeaten brown,
  A stranger on land and at home on the sea,
Coasting as best you may from town to town:
  Coasting along do you often think of me?

I`m a great lady in a sheltered bower,
  With hands grown white through having nought to do:
Yet sometimes I think of you hour after hour
  Till I nigh wish myself a child with you.
Source
The script ran 0.001 seconds.