So, despair tinged all my passion, sorrow mingled with my love,
Though I wooed her in a fashion which the stones of Rome might move,
Though I wrote her fervid sonnets with the fervour underlined,
Though I bought her gloves and bonnets of the most artistic kind,
Yet for me life held no pleasure, and my sorrow grew acute
That she smiled upon my presents, but she frowned upon my suit.
All in vain seemed love and longing till upon one fateful day
Hopes anew came on me thronging, as I heard my Dora say—
"Richard mine, I saw you sobbing o'er my photograph last night,
With a look that set me throbbing with unspeakable delight.
Wide your eyelids you were oping and your look was far from hence
With a passionate wild hoping that was soulful and intense.
"I have seen that look on Irving and sometimes on Beerbohm Tree,
And it seems to be observing joy and rapture yet to be.
In the nostril elevated and the lip that lightly curled
Was a cold scorn indicated of this vulgar nether world.
I could marry that expression. Show it once again then, do!
And I meekly make profession—I—I—I will marry you!"
Joy was then my heart's possession, joy and rapturous content,
For I'd practised that expression, and I knew just what she meant:
So my eyebrows up I lifted and I stared with all my might
And my right-hand nostril shifted somewhat further to the right,
But I quite forgot—sad error was this dire mnemonic slip!—
I forgot in doubt and terror how to move my lower lip!
With one eyebrow elevated down I dropped my dexter lid,
Never mortal dislocated all his features as I did,
For I moved them in my folly right and left and up and down,
Till she asked if I was qualifying for the part of clown.
And I left in deep depression when she showed me to the door,
Saying, "Bring back that expression, sir, or never see me more!"
Then before my looking-glass I sought, and sought for months in vain,
That expression which, alas! I had forgotten, to my pain,
And I said then, feeling poorly, "I'll go seek the haunts of men,
I could reproduce it surely, if I met with it again:
For, whose-ever—peer's or peasant's—face that heavenly look might
wear,
He should never leave my presence till I copied it, I swear."
Could I meet a schoolboy, madly pleased the day that school begins,
Or a father smiling gladly, when the nurse says "Sir, it's twins!"
Or a well-placed politician who no better place desires,
But achieves his one ambition on the day that he retires,
That expression—'tis my sure hope—on their faces I should get,
So I searched for them through Europe, but I haven't found them yet.
Then I lunched one day with Irving, once I dined with Mr. Tree,
Who in intervals of serving made such faces up at me.
But they failed me, though the former once a look upon me hurled,
Which expressed how the barn-stormer shows disdain of all the world,
And his look of rapture when I rose to go was quite immense,
Though not either now or then I thought it soulful or intense.
But at last, some long months later—'twas a dinner I was at
In the City—"Bring me, waiter," someone said, "some more green fat."
'Twas my vis-à-vis was speaking, and an Alderman was he;
On his radiant face, and reeking, was the hope of joy to be.
He had all that lost expression, every detail showing plain,
Soulfulness, hope of possession, joy, intensity, disdain.
Then I sought to make him merry, and I plied him with old port,
Claret, burgundy, Bass, sherry, and a little something short;
And this guzzler, by me aided, kept on soaking all the while,
Till that lost expression faded to an idiotic smile,
And his speech grew thick and thicker, and his mind began to roam,
Till he finished off his liquor and I drove him to my home.