That was a sow's-ear, that an egg of skate, And this an agate rounded by the wave. Then came inquiries still more intimate About himself, the anvil, and the cave; And then, at last, the Child, without alarm Would even spell the letters on his arm.
"G--A--L--_Galatea_." So there grew On his part, like some half-remembered tale, The new-found memory of an ice-bound crew, And vague garrulities of spouting whale,-- Of sea-cow basking upon berg and floe. And Polar light, and stunted Eskimo.
Till, in his heart, which hitherto had been Locked as those frozen barriers of the North, There came once more the season of the green,-- The tender bud-time and the putting forth, So that the man, before the new sensation, Felt for the child a kind of adoration;--
Rising by night, to search for shell and flower, To lay in places where she found them first; Hoarding his cherished goat's milk for the hour When those young lips might feel the summer's thirst; Holding himself for all devotion paid By that clear laughter of the little maid.
Dwelling, alas! in that fond Paradise Where no to-morrow quivers in suspense,-- Where scarce the changes of the sky suffice To break the soft forgetfulness of sense,-- Where dreams become realities; and where I willingly would leave him--did I dare.
Yet for a little space it still endured, Until, upon a day when least of all The softened Cyclops, by his hopes assured, Dreamed the inevitable blow could fall, Came the stern moment that should all destroy, Bringing a pert young cockerel of a Boy.
Middy, I think,--he'd "_Acis_" on his box:-- A black-eyed, sun-burnt, mischief-making imp, Pet of the mess,--a Puck with curling locks, Who straightway travestied the Cyclops' limp, And marveled how his cousin so could care For such a "one-eyed, melancholy Bear."
Thus there was war at once; not overt yet, For still the Child, unwilling, would not break The new acquaintanceship, nor quite forget The pleasant past; while, for his treasure's sake, The boding smith with clumsy efforts tried To win the laughing scorner to his side.
There are some sights pathetic; none I know More sad than this: to watch a slow-wrought mind Humbling itself, for love, to come and go Before some petty tyrant of its kind; Saddest, ah!--saddest far,--when it can do Naught to advance the end it has in view.