Who might be, if she only chose,
   As great a star. 
She had a part in the tableaux
   At the bazaar.

 If I had said but little yet,
   I now said less,
And smoked a home-made cigarette
   In mute distress.

The smoke into his face was blown
   By the wind’s action,
And this afforded me, I own,
   Some satisfaction;

But still his tongue received no check
   Till, coming home,
We stood beside the ancient wreck
   And watched the foam

Wash in among the timbers, now
   Sunk deep in sand,
Though I can well remember how
   I used to stand

 On windy days and hold my hat,
   And idly turn
To read ‘Lovise, Frederikstad’
   Upon her stern.

Her stern long since was buried quite,
   And soon no trace
The absorbing sand will leave in sight
   To mark her place.

This reverie was not permitted
   To last too long. 
Bell’s mind had left the stage, and flitted
   To fields of song.

And now he spoke of Marmion
   And Lewis Morris;
The former he at school had done,
   Along with Horace.

 His maiden aunts, no longer young,
   But learned ladies,
Had lately sent him Songs Unsung,
   Epic of Hades,

Gycia, and Gwen.  He thought them fine;
   Not like that Browning,
Of whom he would not read a line,
   He told me, frowning.

Talking of Horace—­very clever,
   Beyond a doubt,
But what the Satires meant, he never
   Yet could make out.

I said I relished Satire Nine
   Of the First Book;
But he had skipped to the divine
   Eliza Cook.

 He took occasion to declare,
   In tones devoted,
How much he loved her old Arm-chair,
   Which now he quoted.

And other poets he reviewed,
   Some two or three,
Till, having touched on Thomas Hood,
   He turned to me.

’Have you been stringing any rhymes
   Of late?’ he said. 
I could not lie, but several times
   I shook my head.

The last straw to the earth will bow
   The o’erloaded camel,
And surely I resembled now
   That ill-used mammal.

 See how a thankless world regards
   The gifted choir
Of minstrels, singers, poets, bards,
   Who sweep the lyre.

This is the recompense we meet
   In our vocation. 
We bear the burden and the heat
   Of inspiration;

The beauties of the earth we sing
   In glowing numbers,
And to the ‘reading public’ bring
   Post-prandial slumbers;

We save from Mammon’s gross dominion
   These sordid times . . . 
And all this, in the world’s opinion,
   Is ‘stringing rhymes.’

 It is as if a man should say,
   In accents mild,
’Have you been stringing beads to-day,
   My gentle child?’