University of Virginia Library


296

IN THE STUDIO.

You walk my studio's modest round,
With slowly supercilious air;
While in each lifted eyebrow lurks,
The keenness of an ambushed sneer.
You lift your glass, and scan the walls,
Between the pictures—with a glance
Which takes the curtained drapery in,
But views the art-work all askance:
A sigh! a shrug! and then you turn
Homeward—your judgment fixed as fate—
The labors of a life-time gauged,
Serenely in your shallow pate!