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� demolished."                                        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� existence embittered!"                                        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,�                                     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.
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_,�                                         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.