I, who only know of the life of girls!'

He shakes his head with a smile and a nod,

The smoke curling round it with idle aim;

He is like the picture of some young god,

Who, from painted clouds, looks out of a frame.

'The life of a girl is a fairy thing,

With a sweetness none can wish to forget,

Caught from a snowdrop in earliest spring

Or the first faint breath of a violet;

The life of a man, as it is and was,

Is like autumn leaves decaying and dead,

With a flavour of bad theatrical gas,

And of last night's banquet,' my husband said.

[pg 50]

I laugh'd at the gay nonsensical speech,

In my merry pride at being his wife;

I sat at his feet, and I bade him teach

A neophyte out of his noble life.

He mutter'd 'My noble life!' with a frown,

'With noble lives I have little to do;

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