| |
| I KNOW not who thou art, oh lovely one! | |
| Thine eyes were droop’d, thy lips half sorrowful— | |
| Yet thou didst eloquently smile on me | |
| While handing up thy sixpence through the hole | |
| Of that o’er-freighted omnibus! Ah me! | 5 |
| The world is full of meetings such as this— | |
| A thrill, a voiceless challenge and reply— | |
| And sudden partings after! We may pass, | |
| And know not of each other’s nearness now— | |
| Thou in the Knickerbocker Line, and I, | 10 |
| Lone, in the Waverley! Oh, life of pain! | |
| And even should I pass where thou dost dwell— | |
| Nay—see thee in the basement taking tea— | |
| So cold is this inexorable world, | |
| I must glide on! I dare not feast mine eye! | 15 |
| I dare not make articulate my love, | |
| Nor o’er the iron rails that hem thee in | |
| Venture to fling to thee my innocent card— | |
| Not knowing thy papa! | |
| |
| Hast thou papa? | 20 |
| Is thy progenitor alive, fair girl? | |
| And what doth he for lucre? Lo again! | |
| A shadow o’er the face of this fair dream! | |
| For thou mayst be as beautiful as Love | |
| Can make thee, and the ministering hands | 25 |
| Of milliners, incapable of more, | |
| Be lifted at thy shapeliness and air, | |
| And still ’twixt me and thee, invisibly, | |
| May rise a wall of adamant. My breath | |
| Upon my pale lip freezes as I name | 30 |
| Manhattan’s orient verge, and eke the west | |
| In its far down extremity. Thy sire | |
| May be the signer of a temperance pledge, | |
| And clad all decently may walk the earth— | |
| Nay—may be numbered with that blessèd few | 35 |
| Who never ask for discount—yet, alas! | |
| If, homeward wending from his daily cares, | |
| He go by Murphy’s Line, thence eastward tending— | |
| Or westward from the Line of Kipp & Brown,— | |
| My vision is departed! Harshly falls | 40 |
| The doom upon the ear, “She’s not genteel!” | |
| And pitiless is woman who doth keep | |
| Of “good society” the golden key! | |
| And gentlemen are bound, as are the stars, | |
| To stoop not after rising! | 45 |
| |
| But farewell, | |
| And I shall look for thee in streets where dwell | |
| The passengers by Broadway Lines alone! | |
| And if my dreams be true, and thou, indeed, | |
| Art only not more lovely than genteel— | 50 |
| Then, lady of the snow-white chemisette, | |
| The heart which vent’rously crossed o’er to thee | |
| Upon that bridge of sixpence may remain— | |
| And, with up-town devotedness and truth, | |
| My love shall hover round thee! | 55 |
| |
