The Belle of the Ball Room

YEARS, years ago, ere yet my dreams

Had been of being wise and witty;

Ere I had done wth writing themes,

Or yawn'd o'er this infernal Chitty; --

Years, years ago, while all my joy

Was in my fowling-piece and filly;

In short, while I was yet a boy,

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:

She was our queen, our rose, our star;

And then 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 though 'twas Venus from her isle,

And wonder'd where she left her sparrows.

Through sunny May, through sultry June,

I loved her with a love eternal;

I spoke her praises to the moon,

I wrote them to the Sunday Journal.

My mother laugh'd; I soon found out

That ancient ladies have no feeling:

My father frown'd, 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 thriteen,

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 tithes and rents,

Oh! what are they to love's sensations?

Black eyes, fair forehead, clustering locks, --

Such wealth, such honors, Cupid chooses;

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

Young blossom in her boudoir fading;

She warbled Händel; it was grand, --

She made the Catalina jealous;

She touch'd the organ; I could stand

For hours and hours to blow the bellows.

She kept an album, too, at home,

Well fill'd with all an album's glories;

Paintings of butterfiles, and Rome,

Patterns for trimming, Persian stories,

Soft songs to Julia's cockatoo,

Fierce odes to Famine and to Slaughter;

And autographs of Prince Lèboo,

And recipes for elder-water.

And she was flatter'd, worshipp'd, bored;

Her steps were watch'd, her dress was noted;

Her poodle-dog was quite adored,

Her saying were extremely quoted.

She laugh'd, and every heart was glad,

As if the taxes were abolish'd;

She frown'd, and every look was sad,

As if the Opera were demolished.

She smil'd on many just for fun, --

I knew that there was nothing in it;

I was the first, the only one

Her heart had thought of for a minute.

I knew it, for she told me so,

In phrase which was divinely moulded;

She wrote a charming hand, and oh,

How sweetly all her notes were folded!

Our love was like most other loves, ---

A little glow, a little shiver,

A rosebud and a pair of gloves,

And "Fly Not Yet," upon the river;

Some jealousy of some one's heir,

Some hopes of dying broken-hearted;

A miniature, a lock of hair,

The usual vows -- and then we parted.

We parted -- months and years roll'd by;

We met again four summers after;

Our parting was all sob and sigh --

Our meeting was all mirth and laughter;

For in my heart's most secret cell,

There had been many other lodgers;

And she was not the ball-room's belle,

But only -- Mrs. Something Rogers.

Winthrop Mackworth Praed

A Song of Impossibilities

LADY, I loved you all last year,

How honestly and well --

Alas! would weary you to hear,

And torture me to tell;

I raved beneath the midnight sky,

I sang beneath the limes --

Orlando in my lunacy,

And Petrarch in my rhymes.

But all is over! When the sun

Dries up the boundless main,

When black is white, false-hearted one,

I may be yours again!

When passion's early hopes and fears

Are not derided things;

When truth is found in falling tears,

Or faith in golden rings;

When the dark Fates that rule our way

Instruct me where they hide

One woman that would ne'er betray,

One friend that never lied;

When summer shines without a cloud,

And bliss without a pain;

When worth is noticed in a crowd,

I may be yours again!

When science pours the light of day

Upon the lords of lands;

When Huskisson is heard to say

That Lethbridge understands;

When wrinkles work their way in youth

Or Eldon's in a hurry;

When lawyers represent the truth

Or Mr. Sumner Surrey;

When aldermen taste eloquence

Or bricklayers champagne;

When common law is common sense,

I may be yours again!

When learned judges play the beau,

Or learned pigs the tabor;

When traveller Bankes beats Cicero,

Or Mr. Bishop Weber;

When sinking funds discharge a debt,

Or female hands a bomb;

When bankrupts study the Gazette,

Or colleges Tom Thumb;

When little fishes learn to speak,

Or poets not to feign;

When Dr. Geldart construes Greek,

I may be yours again!

When Pole and Thornton honour cheques,

Or Mr. Const a rogue;

When Jericho's in Middlesex,

Or minuets in vogue;

When Highgate goes to Devonport,

Or fashion to Guildhall;

When argument is heard at Court,

Or Mr. Wynn at all;

When Sydney Smith forgets to jest,

Or farmers to complain;

When kings that are are not the best,

I may be yours again!

When peers from telling money shrink,

Or monks from telling lies;

When hydrogen begins to sink,

Or Grecian scrip to rise;

When German poets cease to dream,

Americans to guess;

When Freedom sheds her holy beam

On Negroes, and the Press;

When there is any fear of Rome,

Or any hope of Spain;

When Ireland is a happy home,

I may be yours again!

When you can cancel what has been,

Or alter what must be,

Or bring once more that vanished scene,

Those withered joys to me;

When you can tune the broken lute,

Or deck the blighted wreath,

Or rear the garden's richest fruit,

Upon a blasted heath;

When you can lure the wolf at bay

Back to his shattered chain,

To-day may then be yesterday --

I may be yours again!

Winthrop Mackworth Praed

The Talented Man

DEAR Alice! you'll laugh when you know it, --

Last week, at the Duchess's ball,

I danced with the clever new poet, --

You've heard of him, -- Tully St. Paul.

Miss Jonquil was perfectly frantic;

I wish you had seen Lady Anne!

It really was very romantic,

He is such a talanted man!

He came up from Brazenose College,

Just caught, as they call it, this spring;

And his head, love, is stuffed full of knowledge

Of every conceivable thing.

Of science and logic he chatters,

As fine and as fast as he can;

Though I am no judge of such matters,

I'm sure he's a talented man.

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 nous -- in a talented man.

He sneers, -- how my Alice would scold him! --

At the bliss of a sigh or a tear;

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,

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!

He's hideous, I own it. But fame, love,

Is all that these eyes can adore;

He's lame, -- but Lord Byron was lame, love,

And dumpy, -- but so is Tom Moore.

Then his voice, -- such a voice! my sweet creature,

It's like your Aunt Lucy's toucan:

But oh! what's a tone or a feature,

When once one's a talented man?

My mother, you know, all the season,

Has talked of Sir Geoffrey's estate;

And truly, to do the fool reason,

He has been less horrid of late.

But today, when we drive in the carriage,

I'll tell her to lay down her plan; --

If ever I venture on marriage,

It must be a talented man!

P.S. -- I have found, on reflection,

One fault in my friend, -- entre nous;

Without it, he'd just be perfection; --

Poor fellow, he has not a sou!

And so, when he comes in September

To shoot with my uncle, Sir Dan,

I've promised mamma to remember

He's only a talented man!

Winthrop Mackworth Praed

The Vicar

SOME years ago, ere time and taste

Had turn'd our parish topsy-turvy,

When Darnel Park was Darnel Waste,

And roads as little known as scurvy,

The man who lost his way, between

St Mary's Hill and Sandy Thicket,

Was always shown across the green,

And guided to the Parson's wicket.

Back flew the bolt of lissom lath;

Fair Margaret, in her tidy kirtle,

Led the lorn traveller up the path,

Through clean-clipt rows of box and myrtle;

And Don and Sancho, Tramp and Tray,

Upon the parlour steps collected,

Wagg'd all their tails, and seem'd to say --

'Our master knows you -- you're expected.'

Uprose the Reverend Dr. Brown,

Uprose the Doctor's winsome marrow;

The lady laid her knitting down,

Her husband clasp'd his ponderous Barrow;

Whate'er the stranger's caste or creed,

Pundit or Papist, saint or sinner,

He found a stable for his steed,

And welcome for himself, and dinner.

If, when he reach'd his journey's end,

And warm'd himself in Court or College,

He had not gained an honest friend

And twenty curious scraps of knowledge, --

If he departed as he came,

With no new light on love or liquor, --

Good sooth, the traveller was to blame,

And not the Vicarage, nor the Vicar.

His talk was like a spring, which runs

With rapid change from rocks to roses;

It slipped from politics to puns,

It passed from Mahomet to Moses;

Beginning with the laws which keep

The planets in their radiant courses,

And ending with some precept deep

For dressing eels, or shoeing horses.

He was a shrewd and sound Divine,

Of loud Dissent the mortal terror;

And when, by dint of page and line,

He 'stablish'd Truth, or startled Error,

The Baptist found him far too deep;

The Deist sigh'd with saving sorrow;

And the lean Levite went to sleep,

And dream'd of tasting pork to-morrow.

His sermons never said or show'd

That Earth is foul, that Heaven is gracious,

Without refreshment on the road

From Jerome or from Athanasius:

And sure a righteous zeal inspired

The hand and head that penn'd and plann'd them,

For all who understood admired,

And some who did not understand them.

He wrote, too, in a quiet way,

Small treatises, and smaller verses,

And sage remarks on chalk and clay,

And hints to noble Lords -- and nurses;

True histories of last year's ghost,

Lines to a ringlet, or a turban,

And trifles for the Morning Post,

And nothings for Sylvanus Urban.

He did not think all mischief fair,

Although he had a knack of joking;

He did not make himself a bear,

Although he had a taste for smoking;

And when religious sects ran mad,

He held, in spite of all his learning,

That if a man's belief is bad,

It will not be improved by burning.

And he was kind, and loved to sit

In the low hut or garnish'd cottage,

And praise the farmer's homely wit,

And share the widow's homelier pottage:

At his approach complaint grew mild;

And when his hand unbarr'd the shutter,

The clammy lips of fever smiled

The welcome which they could not utter.

He always had a tale for me

Of Julius Caesar, or of Venus;

From him I learnt the rule of three,

Cat's cradle, leap-frog, and Quae genus:

I used to singe his powder'd wig,

To steal the staff he put such trust in,

And make the puppy dance a jig,

When he began to quote Augustine.

Alack the change! in vain I look

For haunts in which my boyhood trifled, --

The level lawn, the trickling brook,

The trees I climb'd, the beds I rifled:

The church is larger than before;

You reach it by a carriage entry;

It holds three hundred people more,

And pews are fitted up for gentry.

Sit in the Vicar's seat: you'll hear

The doctrine of a gentle Johnian,

Whose hand is white, whose tone is clear,

Whose phrase is very Ciceronian.

Where is the old man laid? -- look down,

And construe on the slab before you,

'Hic jacet Gvlielmvs Brown,

Vir nullâ non donandus lauru.'

Winthrop Mackworth Praed