Why, with beauty, needs there money be,
    Love with liking? 
    Crush the fly-king
In his gauze, because no honey-bee? 40

May not liking be so simple-sweet,
    If love grew there
    ’Twould undo there
All that breaks the cheek to dimples sweet?

Is the creature too imperfect, say? 
    Would you mend it
    And so end it? 
Since not all addition perfects aye!

Or is it of its kind, perhaps,
    Just perfection—­ 50
    Whence, rejection
Of a grace not to its mind, perhaps?

Shall we burn up, tread that face at once
    Into tinder,
    And so hinder
Sparks from kindling all the place at once?

Or else kiss away one’s soul on her? 
    Your love-fancies! 
    —­A sick man sees
Truer, when his hot eyes roll on her! 60

Thus the craftsman thinks to grace the rose,—­
    Plucks a mould-flower
    For his gold flower,
Uses fine things that efface the rose.

Rosy rubies make its cup more rose. 
    Precious metals
    Ape the petals,—­
Last, some old king locks it up, morose!

Then how grace a rose?  I know a way! 
    Leave it, rather. 70
    Must you gather? 
Smell, kiss, wear it—­at last, throw away.

* * * * *

YOUTH AND ART

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,
  You thumbed, thrust, patted, and polished,
Then laughed “They will see some day,
  Smith made, and Gibson deg. demolished.” deg.8

My business was song, song, song;
  I chirped, cheeped, trilled, and twittered, 10
“Kate Brown’s on the boards ere long,
  And Grisi’s deg. existence embittered!” deg.12

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.

We studied hard in our styles,
  Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos, deg. deg.18
For air, looked out on the tiles,
  For fun, watched each other’s windows. 20

You lounged, like a boy of the South,
  Cap and blouse—­nay, a bit of beard too;
Or you got it, rubbing your mouth
  With fingers the clay adhered to.

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.