When on the still wave spread;
And let it wear the graceful dress
Of unadorned simpleness.
Ah! frugal wish; ah! pleasing thought;
Ah! hope indulged in vain;
Of modest fancy cheaply bought,
A stranger yet to Payne.
With undissembled grief I tell,—
For sorrow never comes too late,—
The simplest bonnet in Pall Mall
Is sold for £1 8s.
To Calculation's sober view,
That searches ev'ry plan,
Who keep the old, or buy the new,
Shall end where they began.
Alike the shabby and the gay
Must meet the sun's meridian ray;
The air, the dust, the damp.
This, shall the sudden shower despoil;
That, slow decay by gradual soil;
Those, envious boxes cramp.
Who will, their squander'd gold may pay;
Who will, our taste deride;
We'll scorn the fashion of the day
With philosophic pride.
Methinks me thus, in accents low,
Might Sydney Smith address,
"Poor moralist! and what art thou,
Who never spoke of dress!"
"Thy mental hero never hung
Suspended on a tailor's tongue,
In agonizing doubt;
Thy tale no flutt'ring female show'd,
Who languish'd for the newest mode,
Yet dar'd to live without."
ROM India's burning clime I'm brought,
With cooling gales like zephyrs fraught.
Not Iris when she paints the sky,
Can show more different hues than I;
Nor can she change her form so fast,
I'm now a sail, and now a mast.
I here am red, and there am green,
A beggar there, and here a queen.
I sometimes live in house of hair,
And oft in hand of lady fair.
I please the young, I grace the old,
And am at once both hot and cold.
Say what I am then, if you can,
And find the rhyme, and you're the man.
OUR house of hair and lady's hand,
At first did put me to a stand.
I have it now-'tis plain enough—
Your hairy business is a muff.
Your engine fraught with cooling gales,
At once so like your masts and sails;
Your thing of various shape and hue
Must be some painted toy, I knew;
And for the rhyme to you're the man,
What fits it better than a fan?
GOOD NIGHT TO THE SEASON.
OOD night to the Season! 'Tis over!
Gay dwellings no longer are gay;
The courtier, the gambler, the lover
Are scattered like swallows away :
There's nobody left to invite one
Except my good uncle and spouse;
My mistress is bathing at Brighton,
My patron is sailing at Cowes :
For want of better employment,
Till Ponto and Don can get out,
I'll cultivate rural enjoyment,
And angle immensely for trout.
Good night to the Season!—the lobbies,
Their changes, and rumours of change,
Which startled the rustic Sir Bobbies,
And made all the Bishops look strange :
The breaches, and battles, and blunders,
Performed by the Commons and Peers;
The Marquis's eloquent blunders,
The Baronet's eloquent ears;
Denouncing of Papists and treasons,
Of foreign dominion and oats;
Misrepresentations of reasons,
And misunderstandings of notes.
Good night to the Season!—the buildings
Enough to make Inigo sick;
The paintings, and plasterings, and gildings
Of stucco, and marble, and brick;
The orders deliciously blended,
From love of effect into one;
The club-houses only intended,
The palaces only begun ;
The hell, where the fiend in his glory
Sits staring at putty and stones,
And scrambles from story to story,
To rattle at midnight his bones.
Good night to the Season!—the dances,
The fillings of hot little rooms,
The glancings of rapturous glances,
The fancyings of fancy costumes;
The pleasures which fashion makes duties,
The praising of fiddles and flutes,
The luxury of looking at Beauties,
The tedium of talking to mutes;
The female diplomatists, planners
Of matches for Laura and Jane;
The ice of her Ladyship's manners,
The ice of his Lordship's champagne.
Good night to the Season!-the rages
Led off by the chiefs of the throng,
The Lady Matilda's new pages,
The Lady Eliza's new song;
Miss Fennel's macaw, which at Boodle's
Was held to have something to say;
Mrs. Splenetic's musical poodles,
Which bark" Batti Batti" all day;
The pony Sir Araby sported,
As hot and as black as a coal,
And the Lion his mother imported
In bearskins and grease, from the Pole.
Good night to the Season!—the Toso,
So very majestic and tall;
Miss Ayton, whose singing was so-so,
And Pasta, divinest of all;
The labour in vain of the ballet,
So sadly deficient in stars;
The foreigners thronging the Alley,
Exhaling the breath of cigars;
The loge where some heiress (how killing!)
Environed with exquisites sits,
The lovely one out of her drilling,
The silly ones out of their wits.
Good night to the Season!-the splendour
That beamed in the Spanish Bazaar;
Where I purchased-my heart was so tender—
A card-case, a pasteboard guitar,
A bottle of perfume, a girdle,
A lithographed Riego, full-grown,
Whom bigotry drew on a hurdle
That artists might draw him on stone; A small panorama of Seville,
A trap for demolishing flies,
A caricature of the Devil,
And a look from Miss Sheridan's eyes.
Good night to the Season!—the flowers
Of the grand horticultural fête,
When boudoirs were quitted for bowers,
And the fashion was-not to be late ;
When all who had money and leisure
Grew rural o'er ices and wines,
All pleasantly toiling for pleasure,
All hungrily pining for pines,
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