Sonnet V. Poem by Christopher Pearse Cranch

ALL loves have frailer roots than loves that start
From one ancestral blood. The friends we find
In youth pass on before us, or behind
Are dropped, or on diverging paths depart,
While branches from one trunk still own one heart,
And bud and bear from one maternal mind.
Sister and brother need no vows to bind
Their pre-ordained alliance, nor the art
Of lovers plotting through a thousand fears
Lest love, of passion born, should fade or change;
Nor dread the undermining drip of years;
Nor stand on forms that other souls estrange.
Such love is ours, and theirs who bear our name,
Born in the honored home from which we came.