7. 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. If you never turned your eyes' tail up, As I shook upon E in alt., Or ran the chromatic scale up : 9. For spring bade the sparrows pair, And stalls in our street looked rare With bulrush and watercresses. 10. Why did not you pinch a flower Of thanks in a look, or sing it? 11. I did look, sharp as a lynx, (And yet the memory rankles) When models arrived, some minx Tripped up-stairs, she and her ankles. 12. 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?" 13. Could 66 Suppose we join hands and fortunes, And I fetch her from over the way, Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes ?" 14. 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. 15. But you meet the Prince at the Board, I've married a rich old lord, And you 're dubbed knight and an R. A. 16. Each life's unfulfilled, you see; It hangs still, patchy and scrappy: We have not sighed deep, laughed free, Starved, feasted, despaired,―been happy. 17., And nobody calls you a dunce, And people suppose me clever : This could but have happened once, And we missed it, lost it for ever. |