And around her, best jewels and dearest to brighten the steps of the
throne,
Three golden heads, three fair little maids, in their nursery shone.
'As the mother, so be the daughters,' they say:--nor could mother wish
more
For her own, than men saw in the Queen's, ere the rosebud-dawning was
o'er,
Heart-wise and head-wise, a joy to behold, as they knelt for her kiss,--
Best crown of a woman's life, her true vocation and bliss!--
But the flowers were pale and frail, and the mother watch'd them with
dread,
As the sunbeams play'd round the room on each gay, glistening head.

Anne in that garden of childhood grew nearest Elizabeth: she
Tenderly tended and loved her, a babe with a babe on her knee:
Slight and white from the cradle was Anne; a floweret born
Rathe, out of season, a rose that peep'd out when the hedge was in thorn.
'Why should it be so with us?' thought Elizabeth oft; for in her
The soul 'gainst the body protesting, was but more keenly astir:
'As saplings stunted by forest around o'ershading, we two:
What work for our life, my mother,' she said, 'is left us to do?
Or is't from the evil to come, the days without pleasure, that God
In mercy would spare us, over our childhood outstretching the rod?'
--So she, from her innocent heart; in all things seeing the best
With the wholesome spirit of childhood; to God submitting the rest:
Not seeing the desolate years, the dungeon of Carisbrook drear;
Eyes dry-glazed with fever, and none to lend even a tear!
Now, all her heart to the little one goes; for, day upon day,
As a rosebud in canker, she pales and pines, and the cough has its way.
And the gardens of Richmond on Thames, the fine blythe air of the vale