[
  {
    "title": "Youth and Art",
    "author": "Robert Browning",
    "lines": [
      "It once might have been, once only:",
      "  We lodged in a street together,",
      "You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely,",
      "  I, a lone she-bird of his feather.",
      "",
      "Your trade was with sticks and clay,",
      "  You thumbed, thrust, patted, and polished,",
      "Then laughed \"They will see some day,",
      "  Smith made, and Gibson demolished.\"",
      "",
      "My business was song, song, song;",
      "  I chirped, cheeped, trilled, and twittered,",
      "\"Kate Brown's on the boards ere long,",
      "  And Grisi's existence embittered!\"",
      "",
      "I earned no more by a warble",
      "  Than you by a sketch in plaster;",
      "You wanted a piece of marble,",
      "  I needed a music-master.",
      "",
      "We studied hard in our styles,",
      "  Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos,",
      "For air, looked out on the tiles,",
      "  For fun, watched each other's windows.",
      "",
      "You lounged, like a boy of the South,",
      "  Cap and blouse--nay, a bit of beard too;",
      "Or you got it, rubbing your mouth",
      "  With fingers the clay adhered to.",
      "",
      "And I--soon managed to find",
      "  Weak points in the flower-fence facing,",
      "Was forced to put up a blind",
      "  And be safe in my corset-lacing.",
      "",
      "No harm! It was not my fault",
      "  If you never turned your eye's tail up",
      "As I shook upon Ein alt_,",
      "  Or ran the chromatic scale up:",
      "",
      "For spring bade the sparrows pair.",
      "  And the boys and girls gave guesses,",
      "And stalls in our street looked rare",
      "  With bulrush and watercresses.",
      "",
      "Why did not you pinch a flower",
      "  In a pellet of clay and fling it?",
      "Why did not I put a power",
      "  Of thanks in a look or sing it?",
      "",
      "I did look, sharp as a lynx,",
      "  (And yet the memory rankles)",
      "When models arrived, some minx",
      "  Tripped up stairs, she and her ankles.",
      "",
      "But I think I gave you as good!",
      "  \"That foreign fellow,--who can know",
      "How she pays, in a playful mood,",
      "  For his tuning her that piano?\"",
      "",
      "Could you say so, and never say",
      "  \"Suppose we join hands and fortunes,",
      "And I fetch her from over the way,",
      "  Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes?\"",
      "",
      "No, no: you would not be rash,",
      "  Nor I rasher and something over;",
      "You've to settle yet Gibson's hash,",
      "  And Grisi yet lives in clover.",
      "",
      "But you meet the Prince at the Board,",
      "  I'm queen myself atbals-parés_,",
      "I've married a rich old lord,",
      "  And you're dubbed knight and an R.A.",
      "",
      "Each life unfulfilled, you see;",
      "  It hangs still, patchy and scrappy:",
      "We have not sighed deep, laughed free,",
      "  Starved, feasted, despaired,--been happy",
      "",
      "And nobody calls you a dunce,",
      "  And people suppose me clever;",
      "This could but have happened once,",
      "  And we missed it, lost it forever."
    ],
    "linecount": "68"
  }
]