Quo Musa Tendis? :: :: University of Virginia Library

I met you dear, I met you: I can't be robbed of that;
Despite the crowd, the babble, and the military band;
I met you, yes, I met you: and by your side I sat;
I looked at you, I talked to you, and twice I held your hand.

When you are with me, dearest, the crowd is out of sight;
The men who smoke, the men who pose, the sharpers, and the flats;
The people quite unfit to walk beneath the heaven's light;
The green and yellow women with intolerable hats.

The sun was bright: the dahlias flashed: the trees, in summer sheen,
Shut out the dusty houses, hushed the turmoil of the street;

But, had the charm of peace enhanced the sweetness of the scene,
Even so your beauty had eclipsed the whole of it, my sweet.

I talked to you, you listened; I passed from grave to gay,
With what a world of sympathy you gently murmured “Yes!”
A merry “No,” a soft “Perhaps,” a glance the other way:
An eyebrow raised, a foot that tapped, a rustle of your dress.

You smiled, ah! what a smile is yours; your depth of hazel eyes
Shook conscious of the thought within, expressed but unexplained;
Your speaking face that glowed with all a girl's sedate surprise;
“That brow of hers,” as Browning says: the thoughts that it contained!

I talked as ne'er before; to you my eloquence belonged;
You spoke, dear, with my lips, 'twas I that listened and approved;
Strange subtle phrases sprang, and thoughts as deep as novel thronged:
I know you knew, I swear you did, how ardently I loved.

We parted, and you looked at me in silence: and I knew
The meaning of the look: I'll come to-morrow if I live;
To-morrow I shall come, and I will say a word to you,
And you will speak, at last, the words that hope and rest can give.

2. Her account of the matter.

I met him in the park my dear; he is a funny man;
Impossible to separate his earnest from his fun;
He talks, and talks, it's deadly dull: I smile, you know the plan;
And, when particularly grave, he makes a jest of one.

The park was full of people; Maud had such a lovely dress
A dream of greeny silk and gauze and primrose ribbons, oh!
I wished I had one; and her hat! I tried and tried to guess
How much it cost; she buys the stuff and makes a hat, you know.

I think I sat with him an hour: there was a crowd my dear,
Some pretty girls: one lovely one: and four attractive men:
Old Mrs Robinson was there and Mr Vere de Vere,
And not another soul I knew: I shall not go again.

I don't know what we talked about: I smiled: the same old smile:
I “yes'd” and “no'd” and “really'd,” till I thought he must discover
That I was listening to the band: I wondered all the while
If such a dull old gentleman could ever be a lover.

Perhaps some solemn sober girl with eyes a foot across,
Smooth neatly-parted hair, no stays, elastic-sided boots,
Will yearn at him and marry him: I shan't regret his loss:
I really think some kinds of men are lower than the brutes.

He went at last, the prig! He'll come to-morrow if he can,
He means to recollect our talk—ours mind you—all his life:
Confound—I beg your pardon, dear—well, bless the little man!
And bless the little woman who becomes his little wife!

3. My account of the matter.

A pair of fools: the man was vain,
The woman frivolous, 'tis plain:
And each an egoist in thought:
One dived for self: the other sought
Self on the surface: fools, you see:
Two fools. Perhaps there'll soon be three:
For now they're married, he and she.