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With naught to cheer his close of day
But celibacy, and half-pay,

Since Laura and his stars were cruel-
Sought his quietus in a duel.

He fought and perished; Laura sighed,
To hear how hapless Piercy died;

And wiped her eyes, and thus expressed
The feelings of her tender breast:
"What! dead?-poor fellow-what a pity!
He was so handsome and so witty;
Shot in a duel, too!-good gracious-

How I did hate that man's moustachios !"

Next came the interesting beau,

The trifling youth-Frivolio ;
He came to see, and to be seen,
Grace and good-breeding in his mien ;
Shone all Delcroix upon his head,
The West End spoke in all he said;
And in his neckcloth's studied fold
Sat Fashion, on a throne of gold.
He came, impatient to resign
What heart he had, at Laura's shrine:
Though deep in self-conceit encased,
He learnt to bow to Laura's taste;
Consulted her on new quadrilles,
Spot waistcoats, lavender, and gills;
As willed the proud and fickle fair,
He tied his cloth, and curled his hair;

Varied his manners-or his clothes,
And changed his tailor, or his oaths.

Oh how did Laura love to vex
The fair one of the other sex!
For him she practised every art
That captivates and plagues the heart.
Did he bring tickets for the play?
No-Laura had the spleen to-day.
Did he escort her to the ball?
No-Laura would not dance at all.

Did he look grave ?—" the fool was sad;
Was he jocose?" the man was mad."
E'en when he knelt before her feet,
And there, in accents soft and sweet,
Laid rank and fortune, heart and hand,
At Laura's absolute command,

Instead of blushing her consent,

She "wondered what the blockhead meant."

Yet still the fashionable fool

Was proud of Laura's ridicule;

Though still despised, he still pursued,

In ostentatious servitude,

Seeming, like lady's lap-dog, vain

Of being led by Beauty's chain.

He knelt, he gazed, he sighed, and swore,
While 't was the fashion to adore;

When years had passed, and Laura's frown
Had ceased to terrify the town,

He hurried from the fallen grace,
To idolize a newer face;

Constant to nothing was the ass,
Save to his follies-and his glass.

The next to gain the beauty's ear Was William Lisle, the sonneteer,

Well deemed the prince of rhyme and blank; For long and deeply had he drank

Of Helicon's poetic tide,

Where nonsense flows, and numbers glide;
And slumbered on the herbage green
That decks the banks of Hippocrene.

In short-his very footmen know it—
William is mad- -or else a poet.*

He came, and rhymed; he talked of fountains, Of Pindus, and Pierian mountains;

Of wandering lambs, of gurgling rills,

And roses, and Castalian hills;

He thought a lover's vow grew sweeter,
When it meandered into metre;

And planted every speech with flowers,
Fresh blooming from Aonian bowers.

"Laura, I perish for your sake,❞— (Here he digressed about a lake ;)

"Aut insanit homo, aut versus facit."-Hor. "All Bedlam-or Parnassus is let out."-Pope.

"The charms thy features all disclose," (A simile about a rose ;)

"Have set my very soul on fire,”— (An episode about his lyre ;)

66

Though you despise, I still must love,”— (Something about a turtle dove ;) "Alas! in death's unstartled sleep,”(Just here he did his best to weep ;) "Laura, the willow soon shall wave Over thy lover's lowly grave." Then he began, with pathos due, To speak of cypress, and of rue. But Fortune's unforeseen award Parted the Beauty from the Bard; For Laura, in that evil hour, When unpropitious stars had power, Unmindful of the thanks she owed, Lighted her taper with an ode. Poor William all his vows forgot, And hurried from the fatal spot, In all the bitterness of quarrel, To write lampoons-and dream of laurel.

Years fleeted by, and every grace
Began to fade from Laura's face;
Through every circle whispers ran,
And aged dowagers began

To gratify their secret spite :-
"How shocking Laura looks to-night!

We know her waiting-maid is clever,

But rouge won't make one young forever; Laura should think of being sage,

You know-she's of a certain age.”

Her wonted wit began to fail,

Her eyes grew dim, her features pale;
Her fame was past, her race was done,
Her lovers left her one by one;
Her slaves diminished by degrees,
They ceased to fawn-as she to please.
Last of the gay, deceitful crew,
Chremes, the usurer, withdrew;
By many an art he strove to net
The guineas of the rich coquette;
But (so the adverse fates decreed)
Chremes and Laura disagreed;

For Chremes talked too much of stocks,
And Laura of her opera-box.

Unhappy Laura! sadness marred What tints of beauty time had spared; For all her wide-extended sway

Had faded, like a dream, away;

And they that loved her passed her by
With altered or averted eye.

That silent scorn, that chilling air

The fallen tyrant could not bear;

She could not live, when none admired, And perished, as her reign expired. VOL. II.-4

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