THE BELLE OF THE BALL-ROOM. YEARS-years ago-ere yet my dreams I saw her at the County Ball: There, where 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-O Heaven, her danc ing! Dark was her hair, her hand was white; Her voice was exquisitely tender; Her every look, her every smile, Shot right and left a score of arrows; I thought 'twas Venus from her isle, And wondered where she'd left her sparrows. She talked, of politics or prayers, Or Southey's prose, or Wordsworth's sonnets, Of danglers-or of dancing bears, Of battles-or the last new bonnets; By candlelight, at twelve o'clock, If those bright lips had quoted Locke, I might have thought they murmured Little. Through sunny May, through sultry June, I spoke her praises to the moon, I wrote them to the "Sunday Journal." She was the daughter of a Dean- Had fed the parish with her bounty; And Lord-Lieutenant of the county. But titles, and the three per cents, As Baron Rothschild for the Muses. She sketched; the vale, the wood, the beach, Young blossom in her boudoir fading: She touched the organ; I could stand She kept an album, too, at home, Well filled with all an album's glories: Paintings of butterflies, and Rome, Patterns for trimmings, Persian stories; Soft songs to Julia's cockatoo, Fierce odes to Famine and to Slaughter, And autographs of Prince Leboo, And recipes for elder-water. And she was flattered, worshiped, bored; Her sayings were extremely quoted. She smiled on many, just for fun— Her heart had thought of for a minute.— In phrase which was divinely molded; She wrote a charming hand—and oh ! How sweetly all her notes were folded! |