V.-PORTRAIT OF A LADY. IN THE EXHIBITION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY. WHAT are you, Lady?—naught is here To tell us of your name or story; To claim the gazer's smile or tear, To dub you Whig, or damn your Tory. It is beyond a poet's skill To form the slightest notion, whether We e'er shall walk through one quadrille, Or look upon one moon together. You're very pretty!-all the world Are talking of your bright brow's splendour, And of your locks, so softly curled, And of your hands, so white and slender. But bless my heart! it's very wrong: And Laura thinks your dress "atrocious;" And Lady Jane, who now and then Is taken for the village steeple, Is sure you can't be four feet ten, And "wonders at the taste of people." Soon pass the praises of a face; Swift fades the very best vermilion ; To-day have stared, and pushed, and fainted, Will soon forget your pearls and plumes, You'll be forgotten-as old debts By persons who are used to borrow; Forgotten as the sun that sets, When shines a new one on the morrow; Forgotten--like the luscious peach, That blessed the school-boy last September; Forgotten-like a maiden speech, Which all men praise, but none remember. Yet, ere you sink into the stream, That whelms alike sage, saint, and martyr, And soldier's sword, and minstrel's theme, And Canning's wit, and Gatton's charter, Here of the fortunes of your youth My fancy weaves her dim conjectures, Which have, perhaps, as much of truth Was't in the north or in the south, A wooden or a silver ladle? And was your first, unconscious sleep, And was your father called "your grace?" Her brave forefathers wore at Hastings? Where were you "finished?" tell me where ! Was it at Chelsea, or at Chiswick? Had you the ordinary share Of books and backboard, harp and physic? And did they bid you banish pride, And mind your oriental tinting? And did you learn how Dido died, And who found out the art of printing? And are you fond of lanes and brooks, A votary of the sylvan muses? Or do you con the little books Which Baron Brougham and Vaux diffuses? Or do you love to knit and sew, The fashionable world's Arachne? Or do you canter down the Row, Upon a very long-tailed hackney? And do you love your brother James? And don't you dote on Malibran? And don't you think Tom Moore delightful? I see they've brought you flowers to-day, But carelessly you turn away From all the pinks, and all the roses; Say, is that fond look sent in search Of one whose look as fondly answers? And is he, fairest, in the Church, Or is he ain't he-in the Lancers? And is your love a motley page Of black and white, half joy, half sorrow? Are you to wait till you're of age? Or are you to be his to-morrow? Or are you married to another? Whate'er you are, at last, adieu! I think it is your bounden duty Be prized by all who prize your beauty. (1831.) THE CHILDE'S DESTINY. "And none did love him-not his lemans dear."-Byron. No mistress of the hidden skill, No wizard gaunt and grim, |