| |
| 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, | 5 |
| You thumb’d, thrust, patted and polish’d, | |
| Then laugh’d, “They will see, some day, | |
| Smith made, and Gibson demolish’d.” | |
| |
| My business was song, song, song: | |
| I chirp’d, cheep’d, trill’d and twitter’d, | 10 |
| “Kate Brown ’s on the boards ere long, | |
| And Grisi’s existence embitter’d!” | |
| |
| I earn’d, no more by a warble | |
| Than you by a sketch in plaster; | |
| You wanted a piece of marble, | 15 |
| I needed a music-master. | |
| |
| We studied hard in our styles, | |
| Chipp’d each at a crust like Hindoos, | |
| For air, look’d out on the tiles, | |
| For fun, watch’d each other’s windows. | 20 |
| |
| You lounged, like a boy of the South, | |
| Cap and blouse—nay, a bit of beard too; | |
| Or you it, rubbing your mouth | |
| With fingers the clay adher’d to. | |
| |
| And I—soon managed to find | 25 |
| 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 | |
| If you never turn’d your eye’s tail up | 30 |
| As I shook upon E in alt, | |
| Or ran the chromatic scale up: | |
| |
| For spring bade the sparrows pair, | |
| And the boys and girls gave guesses, | |
| And stalls in our street look’d rare | 35 |
| 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 | |
| Of thanks in a look, or sing it? | 40 |
| |
| I did look, sharp as a lynx, | |
| (And yet the memory rankles) | |
| When models arriv’d, some minx | |
| Tripp’d up stairs, she and her ankles. | |
| |
| But I think I gave you as good! | 45 |
| “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, | |
| “Suppose we join hands and fortunes, | 50 |
| And I fetch her from over the way, | |
| Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes?” | |
| |
| No, no: you would not be rash, | |
| Nor I rasher and something over; | |
| You’ve to settle yet Gibson’s hash, | 55 |
| And Grisi yet lives in clover. | |
| |
| But you meet the Prince at the Board, | |
| I ’m queen myself at bals-parés, | |
| I ’ve married a rich old lord, | |
| And you ’re dubb’d knight and an R. A. | 60 |
| |
| Each life ’s unfulfill’d, you see; | |
| It hangs still, patchy and scrappy: | |
| We have not sigh’d deep, laugh’d free, | |
| Starv’d, feasted, despair’d,—been happy; | |
| |
| And nobody calls you a dunce, | 65 |
| And people suppose me clever; | |
| This could but have happen’d once, | |
| And we miss’d it, lost it forever. | |
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