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, Or you got it, rubbing your mouth 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 With bulrush and watercresses. 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, 66 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, 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, Starved, feasted, despaired,―been happy. XVII. And nobody calls you a dunce, THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. YOU'RE my friend: I. I was the man the Duke spoke to; I helped the Duchess to cast off his yoke, too; So, here's the tale from beginning to end, My friend ! II. Ours is a great wild country: If you climb to our castle's top, I don't see where your eye can stop ; For when you've passed the corn-field country, Where vineyards leave off, flocks are packed, And sheep-range leads to cattle-tract, And cattle-track to open-chase, And open-chase to the very base O' the mountain where, at a funeral pace, Round about, solemn and slow, One by one, row after row, So, like black priests up, and so Down the other side again To another greater, wilder country, That's one vast red drear burnt-up plain, Branched through and through with many a vein Whence iron 's dug, and copper's dealt ; And forge and furnace mould and melt, And so on, more and ever more, Till at the last, for a bounding belt, Comes the salt sand hoar of the great sea-shore, -And the whole is our Duke's country. III. I was born the day this present Duke was— We are of like age to an hour. And pin him true, both eyes betwixt ? And that's why the old Duke would rather my father, He lost a salt-pit than And loved to have him ever in call; That's why my father stood in the hall |