ur flourished too:
For Dabitur's lenten face
No wonder if Date rue. 20

VI

"Would ye retrieve the one?
Try and make plump the other!
When Date's penance is done,
Dabitur helps his brother.

VII

"Only, beware relapse!"
The Abbot hung his head.
This beggar might be perhaps
An angel, Luther said.

NOTES:
"The Twins" versifies a story told by Martin Luther in
his "Table Talk," in which the saying, "Give and it
shall be given unto you," is quaintly personified by the
Latin words equivalent in meaning: Date, "Give," and
Dabitur, "It-shall-be-given-unto-you."

I. Martin Luther: (1483-1546), the leader of the Reformation.

A LIGHT WOMAN

I

So far as our story approaches the end,
Which do you pity the most of us three?
My friend, or the mistress of my friend
With her wanton eyes, or me?

II

My friend was already too good to lose,
And seemed in the way of improvement yet,
When she crossed his path with her hunting noose
And over him drew her net.

III

When I saw him tangled in her toils,
A shame, said I, if she adds just him 10
To her nine-and-ninety other spoils,
The hundredth for a whim!

IV

And before my friend be wholly hers,
How easy to prove to him, I said,
An eagle's the game her pride prefers,
Though she snaps at a wren instead!

V

So, I gave her eyes my own eyes to take,
My hand sought hers as in earnest need,
And round she turned for my noble sake,
And gave me herself indeed. 20

VI

The eagle am I, with my fame in the world,
The wren is he, with his maiden face.
You look away and your lip is curled?
Patience, a moment's space!

VII

For see, my friend goes shaking and white;
He eyes me as the basilisk:
I have turned, it appears, his day to night,
Eclipsing his sun's disk.

VIII

And I did it, he thinks, as a very thief:
"Though I love her--that, he comprehends-- 30
One should master one's passions (love, in chief)
And be loyal to one's friends!"

IX

And she,--she lies in my hand as tame
As a pear late basking over a wall;
Just a touch to try and off it came;
'Tis mine,--can I let it fall?