Align icon (image element, etc) with only first line of text

gistfile1.txt

<h1>The long long text with icon before that should be vertically aligned to first line of text<h1>

h1{
font-size: 40px;
line-height: 1.444;
}
h1:before{
    content: 'A'; // here is the first trick: pseudoelement with some text gives us the height of the 1st line of main-element`s text
    display: inline-block;
    background: url(youricon.png) no-repeat;
    background-size: 10px;
    background-position: 0 center;
    color: transparent; // here is the second trick - we hide text, but bg-image still visible, bingo!
}