Oldalképek
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

20

Oh fly with me! and we will wing
Our white skiff o'er the waves,
And hear the Tritons revelling
Among their coral caves;

The envious mermaid, when we pass,
Shall cease her song, and drop her glass;
For it will break her very heart,
To see how fair and dear thou art.

25 Oh fly with me! and we will dwell
Far over the green seas,
Where sadness rings no parting knell
For moments such as these!
Where Italy's unclouded skies
30 Look brightly down on brighter eyes,
Or where the wave-wed City1 smiles;
Enthroned upon her hundred isles.

Oh fly with me! by these sweet strings
Swept o'er by Passion's fingers,

35 By all the rocks, and vales, and springs
Where Memory lives and lingers,
By all the tongue can never tell,
By all the heart has told so well,
By all that has been or may be,
40 And by Love's self-Oh fly with me!

[blocks in formation]

Leaving all her banquet cold, and her gob- 25 I've often been out upon Haldon

let dry.

[blocks in formation]

To look for a covey with Pup;
I've often been over to Shaldon,
To see how your boat is laid up.
In spite of the terrors of Aunty,
I've ridden the filly you broke;
And I've studied your sweet little Dante
In the shade of your favorite oak:
When I sat in July to Sir Lawrence,
I sat in your love of a shawl;

35 And I'll wear what you brought me from Florence,

40

Perhaps, if you'll come to our Ball.

You'll find us all changed since you van-
ished;

We've set up a National School;1
And waltzing is utterly banished;
And Ellen has married a fool;
The Major is going to travel;

Miss Hyacinth threatens a rout;2
The walk is laid down with fresh gravel;
Papa is laid up with the gout;
45 And Jane has gone on with her easels,
And Anne has gone off with Sir Paul;
And Fanny is sick with the measles,

50

And I'll tell you the rest at the Ball.

You'll meet all your beauties;-the Lily,
And the Fairy of Willowbrook Farm,
And Lucy, who made me so silly

At Dawlish, by taking your arm; Miss Manners, who always abused you, For talking so much about Hock;3 55 And her sister, who often amused you,

60

65

70

By raving of rebels and Rock;1 And something which surely would answer, An heiress quite fresh from Bengal:So, though you were seldom a dancer, You'll dance, just for once, at our Ball.

But out on the world!-from the flowers
It shuts out the sunshine of truth;
It blights the green leaves in the bowers,
It makes an old age of our youth:
And the flow of our feeling, once in it,
Like a streamlet beginning to freeze,
Though it cannot turn ice in a minute,
Grows harder by sudden degrees.
Time treads o'er the graves of affection;
Sweet honey is turned into gall;
Perhaps you have no recollection

That ever you danced at our Ball.

1 A school established by a national society for educating the poor.

A large evening party or other fashionable gathering.

Hochheimer, a kind of wine.

A fictitious name signed to public notices by one of the Irish rebels of 1822.

Dark was her hair, her hand was white; Her voice was exquisitely tender;

You once could be pleased with our ballads

Today you have critical ears;

75 You once could be charmed with our salads

80

Alas! you've been dining with Peers; You trifled and flirted with many;

You've forgotten the when and the how;
There was one you liked better than any-

Perhaps you've forgotten her now.
But of those you remember most newly,
Of those who delight or enthrall,
None love you a quarter so truly

As some you will find at our Ball.

85 They tell me you've many who flatter,

90

Because of your wit and your song; They tell me (and what does it matter?) You like to be praised by the throng; They tell me you're shadowed with laurel, They tell me you're loved by a Blue;1 They tell me you're sadly immoral

Dear Clarence, that cannot be true! But to me you are still what I found you Before you grew clever and tall;

95 And you'll think of the spell that once bound you;

And you'll come, WON'T you come? to our Ball?

From EVERY-DAY CHARACTERS

1829-30

THE BELLE OF THE BALL-ROOM

Il faut juger des femmes depuis la chaussure jusqu'à la coiffure exclusivement, à peu près comme on mesure le poisson entre queue et tête.-LA BRUYÈRE.

Years-years ago,-ere yet my dreams

Had been of being wise or witty,Ere I had done with writing themes, Or yawned o'er this infernal Chitty;5 Years-years ago,-while all my joy Was in my fowling-piece and filly,In short, while I was yet a boy,

10

I fell in love with Laura Lily.

I saw her at the County Ball:
There, when the sounds of flute and fiddle
Gave signal sweet in that old hall

Of hands across and down the middle,
Hers was the subtlest spell by far

Of all that set young hearts romancing; 15 She was our queen, our rose, our star;

And then she danced-O Heaven, her dancing!

2A "blue stocking," a woman affecting an interest in literature and politics. See Byron's Dor Juan, I, 206, 3, and n. 1 (p. 585).

One ought to Judge women exclusive of their foot-wear and their head-wear, approximately as one measures fish between tail and head.

20

Her eyes were full of liquid light;
I never saw a waist so slender!
Her every look, her every smile,

Shot right and left a score of arrows;
I thought 'twas Venus from her isle,
And wondered where she'd left her spar-
rows.1

25 She talked,-of politics or prayers,― Of Southey's prose or Wordsworth's sonnets,

30

Of danglers-or of dancing bears,
Of battles-or the last new bonnets,
By candlelight, at twelve o'clock,

To me it mattered not a tittle;
If those bright lips had quoted Locke,
I might have thought they murmured.
Little.

Through sunny May, through sultry June,
I loved her with a love eternal;

35 I spoke her praises to the moon,

40

45

50

I wrote them to The Sunday Journal:
My mother laughed; I soon found out
That ancient ladies have no feeling:
My father frowned; but how should gout
See any happiness in kneeling?
She was the daughter of a Dean,

Rich, fat, and rather apoplectic;
She had one brother, just thirteen,
Whose color was extremely hectic;
Her grandmother for many a year
Had fed the parish with her bounty;
Her second cousin was a peer,

And Lord Lieutenant of the County.

But titles, and the three per cents, And mortgages, and great relations, And India bonds, and tithes3 and rents, Oh, what are they to love's sensations? Black eyes, fair forehead, clustering locksSuch wealth, such honors, Cupid chooses; 55 He cares as little for the Stocks,

As Baron Rothschild for the Muses.

She sketched; the vale, the wood, the beach,
Grew lovelier from her pencil's shading:
She botanized; I envied each

60 Young blossom in her boudoir fading:
She warbled Handel; it was grand;

She made the Catalani jealous:
She touched the organ; I could stand

For hours and hours to blow the bellows.

1 Sparrows were sacred to Venus. Government bonds yielding three per cent interest.

A tithe is a tenth part of the yearly income paid for the support of the clergy and the church.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

His stories and jests are delightful;-
Not stories, or jests, dear, for you;
The jests are exceedingly spiteful,

The stories not always quite true.
Perhaps to be kind and veracious

May do pretty well at Lausanne;
But it never would answer,-good gracious!
Chez nous1-in a talented man.

25 He sneers,-how my Alice would scold

him!

At the bliss of a sigh or a tear;

1 with us

30

He laughed-only think!-when I told him
How we cried o'er Trevelyan last year;

I vow I was quite in a passion;

I broke all the sticks of my fan;
But sentiment's quite out of fashion,
It seems, in a talented man.

Lady Bab, who is terribly moral,

Has told me that Tully is vain,

35 And apt-which is silly-to quarrel,
And fond-which is sad-of champagne.
I listened, and doubted, dear Alice,
For I saw, when my Lady began,
It was only the Dowager's malice;-
She does hate a talented man!

40

[blocks in formation]
« ElőzőTovább »