No harm!  It was not my fault
  If you never turned your eye’s tail up 30
As I shook upon E in alt,
  Or ran the chromatic scale up: 

For spring bade the sparrows pair. 
  And the boys and girls gave guesses,
And stalls in our street looked rare
  With bulrush and watercresses.

Why did not you pinch a flower
  In a pellet of clay and fling it? 
Why did not I put a power
  Of thanks in a look or sing it? 40

I did look, sharp as a lynx,
  (And yet the memory rankles)
When models arrived, some minx
  Tripped up stairs, she and her ankles.

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?”

Could you say so, and never say
  “Suppose we join hands and fortunes, 50
And I fetch her from over the way,
  Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes?”

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.

But you meet the Prince at the Board,
  I’m queen myself at bals-pares, deg. deg.58
I’ve married a rich old lord,
  And you’re dubbed knight and an R.A. 60

Each life unfulfilled, you see;
  It hangs still, patchy and scrappy: 
We have not sighed deep, laughed free,
  Starved, feasted, despaired,—­been happy

And nobody calls you a dunce,
  And people suppose me clever;
This could but have happened once,
  And we missed it, lost it forever.

* * * * *

A TALE

(Epilogue to “The Two Poets of Croisic.")

What a pretty tale you told me
  Once upon a time
—­Said you found it somewhere (scold me!)
  Was it prose or was it rhyme,
Greek or Latin?  Greek, you said,
While your shoulder propped my head.

Anyhow there’s no forgetting
  This much if no more,
That a poet (pray, no petting!)
  Yes, a bard, sir, famed of yore, 10
Went where suchlike used to go,
Singing for a prize, you know.

Well, he had to sing, nor merely
  Sing but play the lyre;
Playing was important clearly
  Quite as singing:  I desire,
Sir, you keep the fact in mind
For a purpose that’s behind.

There stood he, while deep attention
  Held the judges round, 20
—­Judges able, I should mention,
  To detect the slightest sound
Sung or played amiss:  such ears
Had old judges, it appears!