Heredity

    A SOLDIER of the Cromwell stamp,
    With sword and psalm-book by his side,
    At home alike in church and camp:
    Austere he lived, and smile-less died.

    But she, a creature soft and fine--
    From Spain, some say, some say from France;
    Within her veins leapt blood like wine--
    She led her Roundhead lord a dance!

    In Grantham church they lie asleep;
    Just where, the verger may not know.
    Strange that two hundred years should keep
    The old ancestral fires aglow!

    In me these two have met again;
    To each my nature owes a part:
    To one, the cool and reasoning brain;
    To one, the quick, unreasoning heart.

        Thomas Bailey Aldrich