Selected Poems (109 page)

LVI

It was the Carnival, as I have said

Some six and thirty stanzas back, and so

Laura the usual preparations made,

Which you do when your mind’s made up to go

445

To-night to Mrs. Boehm’s masquerade,

Spectator, or partaker in the show;

The only difference known between the cases

Is –
here
, we have six weeks of ‘varnish’d faces.’

LVII

Laura, when dress’d, was (as I sang before)

450

A pretty woman as was ever seen,

Fresh as the Angel o’er a new inn door,

Or frontispiece of a new Magazine,

With all the fashions which the last month wore,

Colour’d, and silver paper leaved between

455

That and the title-page, for fear the press

Should soil with parts of speech the parts of dress.

LVIII

They went to the Ridotto; – ’tis a hall

Where people dance, and sup, and dance again;

Its proper name, perhaps, were a masqued ball,

460

But that’s of no importance to my strain;

’Tis (on a smaller scale) like our Vauxhall,

Excepting that it can’t be spoilt by rain:

The company is ‘mix’d’ (the phrase I quote is

As much as saying, they’re below your notice);

LIX

465

For a ‘mix’d company’ implies that, save

Yourself and friends, and half a hundred more,

Whom you may bow to without looking grave,

The rest are but a vulgar set, the bore

Of public places, where they basely brave

470

The fashionable stare of twenty score

Of well-bred persons, call’d ‘
the World
;’ but I,

Although I know them, really don’t know why.

LX

This is the case in England; at least was

During the dynasty of Dandies, now

475

Perchance succeeded by some other class

Of imitated imitators: – how

Irreparably soon decline, alas!

The demagogues of fashion: all below

Is frail; how easily the world is lost

480

By love, or war, and now and then by frost!

LXI

Crush’d was Napoleon by the northern Thor,

Who knock’d his army down with icy hammer,

Stopp’d by the
elements
, like a whaler, or

A blundering novice in his new French grammar;

485

Good cause had he to doubt the chance of war,

And as for Fortune – but I dare not d—n her,

Because, were I to ponder to infinity,

The more I should believe in her divinity.

LXII

She rules the present, past, and all to be yet,

490

She gives us luck in lotteries, love, and marriage;

I cannot say that she’s done much for me yet;

Not that I mean her bounties to disparage,

We’ve not yet closed accounts, and we shall see yet

How much she’ll make amends for past miscarriage;

495

Meantime the goddess I’ll no more importune,

Unless to thank her when she’s made my fortune.

LXIII

To turn, – and to return; – the devil take it!

This story slips for ever through my fingers,

Because, just as the stanza likes to make it,

500

It needs must be – and so it rather lingers;

This form of verse began, I can’t well break it,

But must keep time and tune like public singers;

But if I once get through my present measure,

I’ll take another when I’m next at leisure.

LXIV

505

They went to the Ridotto (’tis a place

To which I mean to go myself to-morrow,

Just to divert my thoughts a little space,

Because I’m rather hippish, and may borrow

Some spirits, guessing at what kind of face

510

May lurk beneath each mask; and as my sorrow

Slackens its pace sometimes, I’ll make, or find,

Something shall leave it half an hour behind.)

LXV

Now Laura moves along the joyous crowd,

Smiles in her eyes, and simpers on her lips:

515

To some she whispers, others speaks aloud;

To some she curtsies, and to some she dips,

Complains of warmth, and this complaint avow’d,

Her lover brings the lemonade, she sips;

She then surveys, condemns, but pities still

520

Her dearest friends for being dress’d so ill.

LXVI

One has false curls, another too much paint,

A third – where did she buy that frightful turban?

A fourth’s so pale she fears she’s going to faint,

A fifth’s look’s vulgar, dowdyish, and suburban,

525

A sixth’s white silk has got a yellow taint,

A seventh’s thin muslin surely will be her bane,

And lo! an eighth appears, – ‘I’ll see no more!’

For fear, like Banquo’s kings, they reach a score.

LXVII

Meantime, while she was thus at others gazing,

530

Others were levelling their looks at her;

She heard the men’s half-whisper’d mode of praising,

And, till ’twas done, determined not to stir;

The women only thought it quite amazing

That, at her time of life, so many were

535

Admirers still, – but men are so debased,

Those brazen creatures always suit their taste.

LXVIII

For my part, now, I ne’er could understand

Why naughty women – but I won’t discuss

A thing which is a scandal to the land,

540

I only don’t see why it should be thus;

And if I were but in a gown and band,

Just to entitle me to make a fuss,

I’d preach on this till Wilberforce and Romilly

Should quote in their next speeches from my homily.

LXIX

545

While Laura thus was seen and seeing, smiling,

Talking, she knew not why and cared not what,

So that her female friends, with envy broiling,

Beheld her airs and triumph, and all that;

And well dress’d males still kept before her filing,

550

And passing bow’d and mingled with her chat;

More than the rest one person seem’d to stare

With pertinacity that’s rather rare.

LXX

He was a Turk, the colour of mahogany;

And Laura saw him, and at first was glad,

555

Because the Turks so much admire philogyny,

Although their usage of their wives is sad;

’Tis said they use no better than a dog any

Poor woman, whom they purchase like a pad:

They have a number, though they ne’er exhibit ’em,

560

Four wives by law, and concubines ‘ad libitum.’

LXXI

They lock them up, and veil, and guard them daily,

They scarcely can behold their male relations,

So that their moments do not pass so gaily

As is supposed the case with northern nations;

565

Confinement, too, must make them look quite palely:

And as the Turks abhor long conversations,

Their days are either pass’d in doing nothing,

Or bathing, nursing, making love, and clothing.

LXXII

They cannot read, and so don’t lisp in criticism;

570

Nor write, and so they don’t affect the muse;

Were never caught in epigram or witticism,

Have no romances, sermons, plays, reviews, —

In harams learning soon would make a pretty schism!

But luckily these beauties are no ‘Blues,’

575

No bustling Botherbys have they to show ’em

‘That charming passage in the last new poem.’

LXXIII

No solemn, antique gentleman of rhyme,

Who having angled all his life for fame,

And getting but a nibble at a time,

580

Still fussily keeps fishing on, the same

Small ‘Triton of the minnows,’ the sublime

Of mediocrity, the furious tame,

The echo’s echo, usher of the school

Of female wits, boy bards – in short, a fool!

LXXIV

585

A stalking oracle of awful phrase,

The approving ‘
Good!
’ (by no means GOOD in law)