Of the same age and size, a neighbor's daughter,
Who on a breezy morning climbed the hill
To fetch down to the house a pail of water.
Jack put his best foot foremost on that day,
Vaulting ambition we have seen before,
He stepped too far, of course, and soon he lay
In the vile path, his little crown so sore!
The next act in the tragedy was played
By Jill, whose eager foothold, too, was brief.
Epitome of life, that boy and maid
Together hoped, together came to grief.
And in their simple story lies concealed
The germ of half that's plucked in fiction's field.
- Jack and Jill from Mother Goose Sonnets by Harriet S. Morgridge
Learn more about Poetry Friday.