The Pursuit of Beauty
I saw an aged, aged man
One morning near the Row,
Who sat, dejected and forlorn,
Till it was time to go.
It made me quite depressed and bad
To see a man so wholly sad—
I went and told him so.
I asked him why he sat and stared
At all the passers-by,
And why on ladies young and fair
He turned his watery eye.
He looked at me without a word,
And then—it really was absurd—
The man began to cry.
But when his rugged sobs were stayed—
It made my heart rejoice—
He said that of the young and fair
He sought to make a choice.
He was an artist, it appeared—
I might have guessed it by his beard,
Or by his gurgling voice.
His aim in life was to procure
A model fit to paint
As “Beauty on a Pedestal,”
Or “Figure of a Saint.”
But every woman seemed to be
As crooked as a willow tree—
His metaphors were quaint.
“And have you not observed,” he asked,
“That all the girls you meet
Have either ‘Hockey elbows’ or
Ungainly ‘Cycling feet’?
Their backs are bent, their faces red,
From ‘Cricket stoop,’ or ‘Football head.’”
He spoke to me with heat.
“But have you never found,” I said,
“Some girl without a fault?
Are all the women in the world
Misshapen, lame or halt?”
He gazed at me with eyes aglow,
And, though the tears had ceased to flow,
His beard was fringed with salt.
“There was a day, I mind it well,
A lady passed me by
In whose physique my searching glance
No blemish could descry.
I followed her at headlong pace,
But when I saw her, face to face,
She had the ‘Billiard eye’!”