1. ۱What is he buzzing in my ears?
2. ۲ "Now that I come to die,
3. ۳Do I view the world as a vale of tears?"
4. ۴ Ah, reverend sir, not I!
5. ۵
6. ۶What I viewed there once, what I view again
7. ۷ Where the physic bottles stand
8. ۸On the table's edge,--is a suburb lane,
9. ۹ With a wall to my bedside hand.
10. ۱۰
11. ۱۱That lane sloped, much as the bottles do,
12. ۱۲ From a house you could descry
13. ۱۳O'er the garden-wall: is the curtain blue
14. ۱۴ Or green to a healthy eye?
15. ۱۵
16. ۱۶To mine, it serves for the old June weather
17. ۱۷ Blue above lane and wall;
18. ۱۸And that farthest bottle labelled "Ether"
19. ۱۹ Is the house o'er-topping all.
20. ۲۰
21. ۲۱At a terrace, somewhere near the stopper,
22. ۲۲ There watched for me, one June,
23. ۲۳A girl: I know, sir, it's improper,
24. ۲۴ My poor mind's out of tune.
25. ۲۵
26. ۲۶Only, there was a way ... you crept
27. ۲۷ Close by the side, to dodge
28. ۲۸Eyes in the house, two eyes except:
29. ۲۹ They styled their house "The Lodge."
30. ۳۰
31. ۳۱What right had a lounger up their lane?
32. ۳۲ But, by creeping very close,
33. ۳۳With the good wall's help,--their eyes might strain
34. ۳۴ And stretch themselves to Oes,
35. ۳۵
36. ۳۶Yet never catch her and me together,
37. ۳۷ As she left the attic, there,
38. ۳۸By the rim of the bottle labelled "Ether,"
39. ۳۹ And stole from stair to stair
40. ۴۰
41. ۴۱And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas,
42. ۴۲ We loved, sir--used to meet;
43. ۴۳How sad and bad and mad it was--
44. ۴۴ But then, how it was sweet!