If he gains one, will some ticket,
When his statue’s built,
Tell the gazer “’Twas a cricket
Helped my crippled lyre, whose lilt
Sweet and low, when strength usurped
Softness’ place i’ the scale, she chirped?
“For as victory was nighest,
While I sang and played,—
With my lyre at lowest, highest,
Right alike,—one string that made
‘Love’ sound soft was snapt in twain,
Never to be heard again,—
“Had not a kind cricket fluttered,
Perched upon the place
Vacant left, and duly uttered
‘Love, Love, Love,’ whene’er the bass
Asked the treble to atone
For its somewhat sombre drone.”
But you don’t know music! Wherefore
Keep on casting pearls
To a—poet? All I care for
Is—to tell him that a girl’s
“Love” comes aptly in when gruff
Grows his singing. (There, enough!)
“HAIR, SUCH A WONDER OF FLIX AND FLOSS.”
[GOLD HAIR.]
Oh, the beautiful girl, too white,
Who lived at Pornic, down by the sea,
Just where the sea and the Loire unite!
And a boasted name in Brittany
She bore, which I will not write.