PREPARING FOR HER FIRST SEASON IN TOWN.
JULIA, while London's fancied bliss
Bids you despise a life like this,
While Chiswick and its joys you leave,
For hopes that flatter to deceive,
You will not scornfully refuse
(Though dull the theme, and weak the Muse)
To look upon my line, and hear
What Friendship sends to Beauty's ear.
Four miles from Town, a neat abode
O'erlooks a rose-bush, and a road;
A paling, cleaned with constant care,
Surrounds ten yards of neat parterre,
Where dusty ivy strives to crawl
Five inches up the whitened wall;
The open window thickly set
With myrtle, and with mignonette,
Behind whose cultivated row
A brace of globes peep out for show;
The avenue--the burnished plate,
That decks the would-be rustic gate,
Denote the fane where Fashion dwells,
-"Lyce's Academy for Belles."
'Twas here, in earlier, happier days, Retired from Pleasure's weary maze, You found, unknown to care or pain, The peace you will not find again. Here Friendships, far too fond to last, A bright, but fleeting radiance cast On every sport that Mirth devised, And every scene that Childhood prized, And every bliss, that bids you yet Recall those moments with regret.
Those friends have mingled in the strife That fills the busy scene of life, And Pride and Folly-Cares and Fears, Look dark upon their future years: But by their wrecks may Julia learn Whither her fragile bark to turn; And, o'er the troubled sea of Fate, Avoid the rocks they found too late.
You know Camilla: o'er the plain She guides the fiery hunter's rein; First in the chase she sounds the horn, Trampling to earth the farmer's corn, That hardly deigned to bend its head, Beneath her namesake's lighter tread. With Bob the Squire, her polished lover, She wields the gun, or beats the cover; And then her steed!-why! every clown
Tells how she rubs Smolensko down,
And combs the mane, and cleans the hoof,
While wondering hostlers stand aloof.
At night, before the Christmas fire,
She plays backgammon with the Squire;
Shares in his laugh, and in his liquor,
Mimics her father and the Vicar;
Swears at the grooms-without a blush
Dips in her ale the captured brush.
Until her father duly tired-
The parson's wig as duly fired-
The dogs all still-the Squire asleep,
And dreaming of his usual leap-
She leaves the dregs of white and red,
And lounges languidly to bed;
And still, in nightly visions borne,
She gallops o'er the rustic's corn;
Still wields the lash-still shakes the box,
Dreaming of "sixes"-and the fox.
And this is bliss! The story runs,
Camilla never wept--save once,
Yes! once indeed Camilla cried-
'Twas when her dear Blue-stockings died.
Pretty Cordelia thinks she's illShe seeks her med'cine at Quadrille; With hope, and fear, and envy sick,
She gazes on the dubious trick,
As if eternity were laid
Upon a diamond, or a spade.
And I have seen a transient pique
Wake, o'er that soft and girlish cheek,
A chilly and a feverish hue,
Blighting the soil where Beauty grew,
And bidding Hate and Malice rove
In eyes that ought to beam with love.
Turn we to Fannia-she was fair
As the soft fleeting forms of air,
Shaped by the fancy-fitting theme
For youthful bard's enamoured dream.
The neck, on whose transparent glow
The auburn ringlets sweetly flow,
The eye that swims in liquid fire,
The brow that frowns in playful ire,
All these, when Fannia's early youth
Looked lovely in its native truth,
Diffused a bright, unconscious grace,
Almost divine, o'er form and face.
Her lip has lost its fragrant dew,
Her cheek has lost its rosy hue,
Her eye the glad enlivening rays
That glittered there in happier days,
Her heart the ignorance of woe
Which Fashion's votaries may not know.
The city's smoke-the noxious air-
The constant crowd-the torch's glare-
The morning sleep-the noonday call—
The late repast-the midnight ball,
Bid Faith and Beauty die, and taint
Her heart with fraud, her face with paint.
And what the boon, the prize enjoyed, For fame defaced, and peace destroyed? Why ask we this? With conscious grace She criticises silk and lace;
Queen of the modes, she reigns alike
O'er sarcenet, bobbin, net, vandyke;
O'er rouge and ribbons, combs and curls,
Perfumes and patches, pins and pearls;
Feelings and faintings, songs and sighs,
Small-talk and scandal, love and lies.
Circled by beaux behold her sit,
While dandies tremble at her wit;
The Captain hates a woman's gab;"
"A devil!" cries the shy Cantab;
The young Etonian strives to fly
The glance of her sarcastic eye,
For well he knows she looks him o'er,
To stamp him "buck," or dub him "bore."
Such is her life-a life of waste,
A life of wretchedness-and taste;
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