2.3 THE TWINS. English Poem By HENRY SAMBROOKE LEIGH ( NEW SYLLABUS 2018-19) SSC BOARD

10th English SSC, Examination 2019.
THE   TWINS

In the form and the feature, face, and limb,

I grew so like my brother,

That folks got taking me for him,

And each for one another.

It puzzled all our kith and kin,

It reached a fearful pitch;

For one of us was born a twin,

Yet not a soul knew which.

In this poem, the poet tells what difficulties or problems could be faced by identical twins, in a funny way.

One of the twins is the speaker of the poem, who describes how he got troubles throughout his life due to similar features of their likeness.

He tells that both of them are so alike in their appearance and the way of living or behaving. Being alike may be interesting for others but for the speaker it was not so comfortable thing. All the time they both were misunderstood by the people. All the relatives were confused about deciding who the speaker is and who another twin is. This confusion just led them throughout life and that was the height of their confusion or our likeness…

One day, to make the matter worse,

Before our names were fixed,

As we were being washed by nurse,

We got completely mixed;

And thus, you see by fate's decree,

Or rather nurse's whim.

My brother John got christened me,

And I got christened him.

The matter became worse when their naming ceremony was there. And the nurse mixed up them both, maybe by our luck. Or maybe because of her whim we both got exchanged and the name (John) which I was supposed the get was given to my brother and his to mine.

This Fatal likeness even dogged

My footsteps, when at school,

And I was always getting flogged,

For John turned out a fool.

I put this Question, fruitlessly,

To everyone I knew,

‘What would you do, if you were me,

To prove that you were you?'

The speaker further tells that their (deadly) likeness chased them to school. And the speaker got punishments for his brother's naughtiness and foolishness. After all these things, the speaker was restless and asked everyone an unanswerable question about what they should have done to prove their self-identity.

Our close resemblance turned the tide

Of my domestic life,

For somehow, my intended bride

Became my brother's wife.

In fact, year after year the same 

Absurd mistakes went on,

And when I died, the neighbours came

And buried John.

Being twins and looking alike created a serious matter when the speaker's bride or would be a wife, married to his brother, being similar may be the reason for it. Throughout life, these same ridiculous and senseless mistakes went on. Even till the end of life, people had a confusion that who died? And whom to bury? And they buried John when the speaker died.

The poet exaggerates here in this stanza when the speaker says that his bride got married to his brother. It would not happen with the twins in real life, because people may be confused but not immature. And the brother or sister would not do things like this.