Confessions

5What I viewed there once, what I view again

6 Where the physic bottles stand

7On the table's edge, — is a suburb lane,

8 With a wall to my bedside hand.

9That lane sloped, much as the bottles do,

10 From a house you could descry

11O'er the garden-wall: is the curtain blue

12 Or green to a healthy eye?

13To mine, it serves for the old June weather

14 Blue above lane and wall;

15And that farthest bottle labelled "Ether"

16 Is the house o'er-topping all.

17At a terrace, somewhere near the stopper,

18 There watched for me, one June,

19A girl: I know, sir, it's improper,

20 My poor mind's out of tune.

21Only, there was a way ... you crept

22 Close by the side, to dodge

23Eyes in the house, two eyes except:

24 They styled their house "The Lodge."

25What right had a lounger up their lane?

26 But, by creeping very close,

27With the good wall's help, — their eyes might strain

28 And stretch themselves to Oes,

29Yet never catch her and me together,

30 As she left the attic, there,

31By the rim of the bottle labelled "Ether,"

32 And stole from stair to stair

33And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas,

34 We loved, sir — used to meet;

35How sad and bad and mad it was —

36 But then, how it was sweet!