YOUTH AND ART°
Reading edition
YOUTH AND ART°
It once might have been, once only: We lodged in a street together, You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely, I, a lone she-bird of his feather. Your trade was with sticks and clay, You thumbed, thrust, patted, and polished, Then laughed "They will see some day, °8Smith made, and Gibson° demolished." My business was song, song, song;[page 59] 10 I chirped, cheeped, trilled, and twittered, "Kate Brown's on the boards ere long, °12And Grisi's° existence embittered!" I earned no more by a warble Than you by a sketch in plaster; You wanted a piece of marble, I needed a music-master. We studied hard in our styles, °18Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos,° For air, looked out on the tiles, 20 For fun, watched each other's windows. You lounged, like a boy of the South, Cap and blouse—nay, a bit of beard too; Or you got it, rubbing your mouth With fingers the clay adhered to. And I—soon managed to find Weak points in the flower-fence facing, Was forced to put up a blind And be safe in my corset-lacing. No harm! It was not my fault 30 If you never turned your eye's tail up As I shook upon E in alt,[page 60] Or ran the chromatic scale up: For spring bade the sparrows pair. And the boys and girls gave guesses, And stalls in our street looked rare With bulrush and watercresses. Why did not you pinch a flower In a pellet of clay and fling it? Why did not I put a power 40 Of thanks in a look or sing it? I did look, sharp as a lynx, (And yet the memory rankles) When models arrived, some minx Tripped up stairs, she and her ankles. But I think I gave you as good! "That foreign fellow,—who can know How she pays, in a playful mood, For his tuning her that piano?" Could you say so, and never say 50 "Suppose we join hands and fortunes, And I fetch her from over the way, Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes?" No, no: you would not be rash,[page 61] Nor I rasher and something over; You've to settle yet Gibson's hash, And Grisi yet lives in clover. But you meet the Prince at the Board, °58I'm queen myself at bals-parés,° I've married a rich old lord, 60 And you're dubbed knight and an R.A. Each life unfulfilled, you see; It hangs still, patchy and scrappy: We have not sighed deep, laughed free, Starved, feasted, despaired,—been happy And nobody calls you a dunce, And people suppose me clever; This could but have happened once, And we missed it, lost it forever.