Many passengers arrest one,
To demand the same free question.
Shorter's my reply, and franker-
That's the Bard, the Beau, the Banker.
Yet if you could bring about,
Just to turn him inside out,
Satan's self would seem less sooty,
And his present aspect-Beauty.
Mark that (as he masks the bilious
Air, so softly supercilious)
Chastened bow, and mock humility,
Almost sickened to servility;
Hear his tone, (which is to talking
That which creeping is to walking –
Now on all-fours, now on tiptoe),
Hear the tales he lends his lip to;
Little hints of heavy scandals,
Every friend in turn he handles;
All which women or which men do,
Glides forth in an innuendo,
Clothed in odds and ends of humor-
Herald of each paltry rumor.
From divorces down to dresses,
Women's frailties, men's excesses,
All which life presents of evil
Make for him a constant revel.
You're his foe-for that he fears you,
And in absence blasts and sears you:
You're his friend-for that he hates you,
First caresses, and then baits you,
Darting on the opportunity
When to do it with impunity:
You are neither-then he 'll flatter
Till he finds some trait for satire;
Hunts your weak point out, then shows it
Where it injures to disclose it,
In the mode that 's most invidious,
Adding every trait that's hideous,
From the bile, whose blackening river
Rushes through his Stygian liver.
Then he thinks himself a lover:
Why I really can't discover
In his mind, age, face, or figure :
Viper-broth might give him vigor:
Let him keep the caldron steady,
He the venom has already.
For his faults, he has but one-
'Tis but envy, when all's done.
He but pays the pain he suffers;
Clipping, like a pair of snuffers,
Lights which ought to burn the brighter
For this temporary blighter.
He's the cancer of his species,
And will eat himself to pieces;
Plague personified, and famine;
Devil, whose sole delight is damning!
For his merits, would you know 'em?
Once he wrote a pretty Poem.
Ar Cheltenham, where one drinks one's fill
Of folly and cold water,
I danced, last year, my first quadrille
With old Sir Geoffrey's daughter.
Her cheek with summer's rose might vie,
When summer's rose is newest;
Her eyes were blue as autumn's sky,
When autumn's sky is bluest;
And well my heart might deem her one
Of life's most precious flowers,
For half her thoughts were of its sun,
And half were of its showers.
I spoke of novels:-" Vivian Gray"
Was positively charming,
And "Almack's" infinitely gay,
And "Frankenstein" alarming;
I said "De Vere" was chastely told,
Thought well of " Herbert Lacy,"
Called Mr. Banim's sketches "bold,"
And Lady Morgan's "racy;"
I vowed the last new thing of Hook's
Was vastly entertaining;
And Laura said-"I dote on books,
Because it's always raining!"
I talked of music's gorgeous fane,
I raved about Rossini,
Hoped Ronzo would come back again,
And criticized Paccini;
I wished the chorus singers dumb,
The trumpets more pacific,
And eulogized Brocard's aplomb,
And voted Paul "terrific."
What cared she for Medea's pride
Or Desdemona's sorrow?
"Alas!" my beauteous listener sighed,
"We must have storms to-morrow!"
I told her tales of other lands;
Of ever-boiling fountains,
Of poisonous lakes, and barren sands,
Vast forests, trackless mountains;
I painted bright Italian skies,
I lauded Persian roses,
Coined similes for Spanish eyes,
And jests for Indian noses;
I laughed at Lisbon's love of mass,
And Vienna's dread of treason;
And Laura asked me where the glass
Stood at Madrid last season.
I broached whate'er had gone its rounds, The week before, of scandal;
What made Sir Luke lay down his hounds, And Jane take up her Handel;
Why Julia walked upon the heath,
With the pale moon above her; Where Flora lost her false front teeth, And Anne her false lover;
How Lord de B. and Mrs. L.
Had crossed the sea together;
My shuddering partner cried-" Oh, Ciel! How could they in such weather?"
Was she a blue ?-I put my trust
In strata, petals, gases;
A boudoir pedant ?--I discussed
The toga and the fasces;
A cockney-muse ?-I mouthed a deal
Of folly from Endymion :
A saint?-I praised the pious zeal
Of Messrs. Way and Simeon;
A politician?-It was vain
To quote the morning paper;
The horrid phantoms come again,
Rain, hail, and snow, and vapor.
Flat flattery was my only chance,
I acted deep devotion,
Found magic in her every glance,
Grace in her every motion;
I wasted all a stripling's lore,
Prayer, passion, folly, feeling;
And wildly looked upon the floor,
And wildly on the ceiling;
I envied gloves upon her arm,
And shawls upon her shoulder;
And when my worship was most warın,
She "
never found it colder."
I don't object to wealth or land ·
And she will have the giving
Of an extremely pretty hand,
Some thousands, and a living.
She makes silk purses, broiders stools,
Sings sweetly, dances finely,
Paints screens, subscribes to Sunday-schools,
And sits a horse divinely.
But to be linked for life to her!
The desperate man who tried it,
Might marry a barometer,
And hang himself beside it!
YEARS-years ago-ere yet my dreams
Had been of being wise and witty;
Ere I had done with writing themes,
Or yawn'd o'er this infernal Chitty;
Years, years ago, while all my joys
Were in my fowling-piece and filly:
In short, while I was yet a boy,
I fell in love with Laura Lilly.
I saw her at a country ball;
There when the sound 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 sets young hearts romancing:
She was our queen, our rose, our star;
And when she danced-oh, heaven, her dancing!
Dark was her hair, her hand was white;
Her voice was exquisitely tender,
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 't was Venus from her isle,
I wondered where she'd left her sparrows.
She talk'd of politics or prayers;
Of Southey's prose, or Wordsworth's sonnets;
Of daggers or of dancing bears,
Of battles, or the last new bonnets;
By candle-light, at twelve o'clock,
To me it matter'd 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;
I spoke her praises to the moon,
I wrote them for the Sunday Journal.
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