Sketching the Castle.
I.
Sketching the castle, there they sit,1
A happy group, this summer day :2
But I, who cannot draw one bit,3
Can sketch it too as well as they.4
II.
Yet if you saw my castle-sketch5
You might begin to laugh or rail :6
I own, indeed, it might not fetch7
A price at Mr. Christie’s sale.8
Three women and a man sit by the seaside on the edge of a cliff, sketching a castle
in the background. The three women sit in
front of the man with their legs hanging off of the cliff’s edge. There is a purse
to the right of one of the women and a basket and
two cups to the right of the man. The man has a pipe in his mouth. 2/3 page.
III.
For look. You find no donjon-keep,9
No frowning arch, no stern old wall ;10
And where’s the moat, so broad and deep ?11
“ It’s not,” you say, “ the thing at all.12
IV.
“ You’ve tried to draw an English cot,13
A cottage set in flowers and trees,14
A fountain near a garden grot,15
And birds of song, and hives of bees.16
V.
“ And there’s a lady, young and mild,17
Who smiles her bees and flowers among ;18
Before her crawls a white-limb’d child,19
Beside her sits a husband young.20
VI.
“ And yes,—why, you audacious wretch,21
She’s something like Miss Laura there—”22
Pooh, hold your tongue, I choose to sketch23
My little castle—in the air.24