Selected Poems (Penguin Classics)
“mine, But my master’s, the Tipton Slasher’),And the cards where pistol-balls mark ace,[20] And a satin shoe used for cigar-case,And the chamois-horns (‘shot in the Chablais’)And prints – Rarey drumming on Cruiser, And Sayers, our champion, the bruiser,And the little edition of Rabelais:Where a friend, with both hands in his pockets, May saunter up close to examine it, And remark a good deal of Jane Lamb in it,‘But the eyes are half out of their sockets;That hair’s not so bad, where the gloss is,[30] But they’ve made the girl’s nose a proboscis:Jane Lamb, that we danced with at Vichy!What, is not she Jane? Then, who is she?’All that I own is a print,An etching, a mezzotint;’Tis a study, a fancy, a fiction,Yet a fact (take my conviction)Because it has more than a hintOf a certain face, I neverSaw elsewhere touch or trace of[40] In women I’ve seen the face of:Just an etching, and, so far, clever.I keep my prints, an imbroglio,Fifty in one portfolio.When somebody tries my claret,We turn r...ound chairs to the fire,Chirp over days in a garret, Chuckle o’er increase of salary,Taste the good fruits of our leisure,Talk about pencil and lyre, [50] And the National Portrait Gallery:Then I exhibit my treasure.After we’ve turned over twenty, And the debt of wonder my crony owesIs paid to my Marc Antonios,He stops me – ‘Festina lentè!What’s that sweet thing there, the etching?’How my waistcoat-strings want stretching, How my cheeks grow red as tomatoes,How my heart leaps!MoreLess
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