How comes it, Flora, that, whenever we
Play cards together, you invariably,
        However the pack parts,
        Still hold the Queen of Hearts?

I've scanned you with a scrutinizing gaze,
Resolved to fathom these your secret ways:
         But, sift them as I will,
        Your ways are secret still.

I cut and shuffle; shuffle, cut, again;
But all my cutting, shuffling, proves in vain:
         Vain hope, vain forethought, too;
         That Queen still falls to you.

I dropped her once, prepense; but, ere the deal
Was dealt, your instinct seemed her loss to feel:
        "There should be one card more,"
        You said, and searched the floor.

I cheated once: I made a private notch
In Heart-Queen's back, and kept a lynx-eyed watch;
         Yet such another back
         Deceived me in the pack:

The Queen of Clubs assumed by arts unknown
An imitative dint that seemed my own;
         This notch, not of my doing,
         Misled me to my ruin.
It baffles me to puzzle out the clew,
Which must be skill, or craft, or luck in you:
        Unless, indeed, it be
        Natural affinity.