Before I hammered out a word,

How could I dream you’d heard a sentence?

Or when with all the warmth of youth

I strove to prove my love no fiction,

How could I guess I urged a truth

On one already past conviction?

How could I dream that ivory part,

Your hand—where I have looked and lingered;

Altho’ it stole away my heart,

Had been held up as one light-fingered?