II Not a twinkle from the fly, Not a glimmer from the worm. When the crickets stopped their cry, When the owls forbore a term, You heard music; that was I. III Earth turned in her sleep with pain, In at heaven and out again, Lightning-where it broke the roof, Bloodlike, some few drops of rain. IV What they could my words expressed, And when singing's best was done, V So wore night; the East was gray, White the broad-faced hemlock flowers: There would be another day; Ere its first of heavy hours Found me, I had passed away. VI What became of all the hopes, Words and song and lute as well? Say, this struck you : "When life gropes "Feebly for the path where fell "Light last on the evening slopes,— VII "One friend in that path shall be, VIII Never say-as something bodes 66 So, the worst has yet a worse! "When life halts 'neath double loads, "Better the task-master's curse "Than such music on the roads! IX "When no moon succeeds the sun, "Nor can pierce the midnight's tent "Any star, the smallest one, "While some drops, where lightning rent, "Show the final storm begun— X "When the fire-fly hides its spot, “When the garden-voices fail "In the darkness thick and hot,"Shall another voice avail, "That shape be where these are not? XI "Has some plague a longer lease, Proffering its help uncouth? "Can't one even die in peace? "As one shuts one's eye on youth, "Is that face the last one sees?" XII Oh how dark your villa was, IT once might have been, once only: II Your trade was with sticks and clay, III My business was song, song, song; I chirped, cheeped, trilled and twittered, "Kate Brown's on the boards ere long, "And Grisi's existence embittered! IV 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. V We studied hard in our styles, Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos, For air, looked out on the tiles, For fun, watched each other's windows. VI You lounged, like a boy of the South, With fingers the clay adhered to. VII 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. VIII No harm! It was not my fault If you never turned your eye's tail up As I shook upon E in alt., Or ran the chromatic scale up : IX For spring bade the sparrows pair, And the boys and girls gave guesses, And stalls in our street looked rare X Why did not you pinch a flower Of thanks in a look, or sing it? XI I did look, sharp as a lynx, (And yet the memory rankles) When models arrived, some minx Tripped up stairs, she and her ankles. XII 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?" XIII Could you say so, and never say "Suppose we join hands and fortunes, "And I fetch her from over the way, "Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes ?" XIV No, no you would not be rash, Nor I rasher and something over: You've to settle yet Gibson's hash, And Grisi yet lives in clover. XV But you meet the Prince at the Board, I've married a rich old lord, And you're dubbed knight and an R.A. XVI Each life's unfulfilled, you see ; It hangs still, patchy and scrappy: We have not sighed deep, laughed free, |