Good sir, have you seen pass this wayA mischief straight from market-day?You'd know her at a glance, I think;Her eyes are blue, her lips are pink;She has a way of looking backOver her shoulder, and, alack!Who gets that look one time, good sir,Has naught to do but follow her.
I have not seen this maid, methinks,Though she that passed had lips like pinks.
Or like two strawberries made oneBy some sly trick of dew and sun.
A poet!
Nay, a simple swainThat tends his flock on yonder plain,Naught else, I swear by book and bell.But she that passed—you marked her well.Was she not smooth as any beThat dwell herein in Arcady?
Her skin was as the satin barkOf birches.
Light or dark?
Quite dark.
Then 'twas not she.
The peach's sideThat's next the sun is not so dyedAs was her cheek. Her hair hung downLike summer twilight falling brown;And when the breeze swept by, I wistHer face was in a sombre mist.
No, that is not the maid I seek.HER hair lies gold against the cheek;Her yellow tresses take the mornLike silken tassels of the corn.And yet—brown locks are far from bad.
Now I bethink me, this one hadA figure like the willow-treeWhich, slight and supple, wondrouslyInclines to droop with pensive grace,And still retains its proper place;A foot so arched and very smallThe marvel was she walked at all;Her hand—in sooth I lack for words—Her hand, five slender snow-white birds.Her voice—though she but said "God-speed"—Was melody blown through a reed;The girl Pan changed into a pipeHad not a note so full and ripe.And then her eye—my lad, her eye!Discreet, inviting, candid, shy,An outward ice, an inward fire,And lashes to the heart's desire—Soft fringes blacker than the sloe.
Good sir, which way did THIS one go? . . . . . . . .
So, he is off! The silly youthKnoweth not Love in sober sooth.He loves—thus lads at first are blind—No woman, only Womankind.I needs must laugh, for, by the Mass,No maid at all did this way pass!
The spare Professor, grave and bald,Began his paper. It was called,I think, "A Brief Historic GlanceAt Russia, Germany, and France."A glance, but to my best belief'Twas almost anything but brief—A wide survey, in which the earthWas seen before mankind had birth;Strange monsters basked them in the sun,Behemoth, armored glyptodon,And in the dawn's unpractised rayThe transient dodo winged its way;Then, by degrees, through silt and slough,We reached Berlin—I don't know how.The good Professor's monotoneHad turned me into senseless stoneInstanter, but that near me satHypatia in her new spring hat,Blue-eyed, intent, with lips whose bloomLighted the heavy-curtained room.Hypatia—ah, what lovely thingsAre fashioned out of eighteen springs!At first, in sums of this amount,The eighteen winters do not count.Just as my eyes were growing dimWith heaviness, I saw that slim,Erect, elastic figure there,Like a pond-lily taking air.She looked so fresh, so wise, so neat,So altogether crisp and sweet,I quite forgot what Bismarck said,And why the Emperor shook his head,And how it was Von Moltke's frownCost France another frontier town.The only facts I took awayFrom the Professor's theme that dayWere these: a forehead broad and low,Such as the antique sculptures show;A chin to Greek perfection true;Eyes of Astarte's tender blue;A high complexion without fleckOr flaw, and curls about her neck.
I beg you come to-night and dine.A welcome waits you, and sound wine—The Roederer chilly to a charm,As Juno's breath the claret warm,The sherry of an ancient brand.No Persian pomp, you understand—A soup, a fish, two meats, and thenA salad fit for aldermen(When aldermen, alas, the days!Were really worth their mayonnaise);A dish of grapes whose clusters wonTheir bronze in Carolinian sun;Next, cheese—for you the Neufchatel,A bit of Cheshire likes me well;Cafe au lait or coffee black,With Kirsch or Kummel or Cognac(The German band in Irving PlaceBy this time purple in the face);Cigars and pipes. These being through,Friends shall drop in, a very few—Shakespeare and Milton, and no more.When these are guests I bolt the door,With Not at Home to any oneExcepting Alfred Tennyson.
The bloom that lies on Fanny's cheekIs all my Latin, all my Greek;The only sciences I knowAre frowns that gloom and smiles that glow;Siberia and ItalyLie in her sweet geography;No scholarship have I but suchAs teaches me to love her much.
Why should I strive to read the skies,Who know the midnight of her eyes?Why should I go so very farTo learn what heavenly bodies are!Not Berenice's starry hairWith Fanny's tresses can compare;Not Venus on a cloudless night,Enslaving Science with her light,Ever reveals so much as whenSHE stares and droops her lids again.
If Nature's secrets are forbiddenTo mortals, she may keep them hidden.AEons and aeons we progressedAnd did not let that break our rest;Little we cared if Mars o'erheadWere or were not inhabited;Without the aid of Saturn's ringsFair girls were wived in those far springs;Warm lips met ours and conquered usOr ere thou wert, Copernicus!
Graybeards, who seek to bridge the chasm'Twixt man to-day and protoplasm,Who theorize and probe and gape,And finally evolve an ape—Yours is a harmless sort of cult,If you are pleased with the result.Some folks admit, with cynic grace,That you have rather proved your case.These dogmatists are so severe!Enough for me that Fanny's here,Enough that, having long survivedPre-Eveic forms, she HAS arrived—An illustration the completestOf the survival of the sweetest.
Linnaeus, avaunt! I only careTo know what flower she wants to wear.I leave it to the addle-patedTo guess how pinks originated,As if it mattered! The chief thingIs that we have them in the Spring,And Fanny likes them. When they come,I straightway send and purchase some.The Origin of Plants—go to!Their proper endIhave in view.
O loveliest book that ever manLooked into since the world beganIs Woman! As I turn those pages,As fresh as in the primal ages,As day by day I scan, perplext,The ever subtly changing text,I feel that I am slowly growingTo think no other work worth knowing.And in my copy—there is noneSo perfect as the one I own—I find no thing set down but suchAs teaches me to love it much.
Curled up and sitting on her feet,Within the window's deep embrasure,Is Lydia; and across the street,A lad, with eyes of roguish azure,Watches her buried in her book.In vain he tries to win a look,And from the trellis over thereBlows sundry kisses through the air,Which miss the mark, and fall unseen,Uncared for. Lydia is thirteen.
My lad, if you, without abuse,Will take advice from one who's wiser,And put his wisdom to more useThan ever yet did your adviser;
If you will let, as none will do,Another's heartbreak serve for two,You'll have a care, some four years hence,How you lounge there by yonder fenceAnd blow those kisses through that screen—For Lydia will be seventeen.
I say it under the rose—oh, thanks!—yes, under the laurel,We part lovers, not foes;we are not going to quarrel.
We have too long been friendson foot and in gilded coaches,Now that the whole thing ends,to spoil our kiss with reproaches.
I leave you; my soul is wrung;I pause, look back from the portal—Ah, I no more am young,and you, child, you are immortal!
Mine is the glacier's way,yours is the blossom's weather—When were December and Mayknown to be happy together?
Before my kisses grow tame,before my moodiness grieve you,While yet my heart is flame,and I all lover, I leave you.
So, in the coming time,when you count the rich years over,Think of me in my prime,and not as a white-haired lover,
Fretful, pierced with regret,the wraith of a dead DesireThrumming a cracked spinetby a slowly dying fire.
When, at last, I am cold—years hence, if the gods so will it—Say, "He was true as gold,"and wear a rose in your fillet!
Others, tender as I,will come and sue for caresses,Woo you, win you, and die—mind you, a rose in your tresses!
Some Melpomene woo,some hold Clio the nearest;You, sweet Comedy—youwere ever sweetest and dearest!
Nay, it is time to go—when writing your tragic sisterSay to that child of woehow sorry I was I missed her.
Really, I cannot stay,though "parting is such sweet sorrow" . . .Perhaps I will, on my waydown-town, look in to-morrow!
Who is Lydia, pray, and whoIs Hypatia? Softly, dear,Let me breathe it in your ear—They are you, and only you.And those other nameless twoWalking in Arcadian air—She that was so very fair?She that had the twilight hair?—They were you, dear, only you.If I speak of night or day,Grace of fern or bloom of grape,Hanging cloud or fountain spray,Gem or star or glistening dew,Or of mythologic shape,Psyche, Pyrrha, Daphne, say—I mean you, dear, you, just you.
To spring belongs the violet, and the blownSpice of the roses let the summer own.Grant me this favor, Muse—all else withhold—That I may not write verse when I am old.
And yet I pray you, Muse, delay the time!Be not too ready to deny me rhyme;And when the hour strikes, as it must, dear Muse,I beg you very gently break the news.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Sisters' Tragedy, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich