THE BELLE OF THE BALL-ROOM. EARS-years ago,-ere yet my dreams YEAR Had been of being wise or witty,- I fell in love with Laura Lily. 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, THE BELLE OF THE BALL-ROOM. 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 dancing! Dark was her hair, her hand was white; Her eyes were full of liquid light; I never saw a waist so slender! Her every look, her every smile, Shot right and left a score of arrows; I thought 'twas Venus from her isle, And wonder'd where she'd left her sparrows. She talk'd,-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, THE BELLE OF THE BALL-ROOM. By candlelight, at twelve o'clock, To me it matter'd not a tittle; If those bright lips had quoted Locke, I might have thought they murmur'd Little. Through sunny May, through sultry June, I loved her with a love eternal; I spoke her praises to the moon, I wrote them to the Sunday Journal: My father frown'd; but how should gout She was the daughter of a Dean, Rich, fat, and rather apoplectic; She had one brother, just thirteen, Whose color was extremely hectic; THE BELLE OF THE BALL-ROOM. Her grandmother for many a year Had fed the parish with her bounty; Her second cousin was a peer, And Lord Lieutenant of the County. But titles, and the three per cents., And mortgages, and great relations, And India bonds, and tithes, and rents, Oh what are they to love's sensations? Black eyes, fair forehead, clustering locksSuch wealth, such honors, Cupid chooses, He cares as little for the Stocks, As Baron Rothschild for the Muses. She sketch'd; the vale, the wood, the beach, Grew lovelier from her pencil's shading: She botanized; I envied each Young blossom in her boudoir fading: |