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THE BELLE OF THE BALL-ROOM.

YEARS-years ago,-ere yet my dreams

Had been of being wise or witty,

Ere I had done with writing themes,
Or yawn'd o'er this infernal Chitty ;-
Years-years ago,-while all my joy
Was in my fowling-piece and filly,—
In short, while I was yet a boy,

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,

10 VINU AIMBOLIAD

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 voice was exquisitely tender;

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 mother laugh'd; I soon found out That ancient ladies have no feeling: My father frown'd; but how should gout See any happiness in kneeling?

She was the daughter of a Dean,

Rich, fat, and rather apoplectic; She had one brother, just thirteen, Whose color was extremely hectic;

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