With dandies dined; heard senators declaiming;
Seen beauties brought to market by the score, Sad rakes to sadder husbands chastely taming;
There 's little left but to be bored or bore.
Witness those 'ci-devant jeunes hommes' who stem The stream, nor leave the world which leaveth them.
'T is said- indeed a general complaint-That no one has succeeded in describing The monde, exactly as they ought to paint:
Some say, that authors only snatch, by bribing The porter, some slight scandals strange and quaint, To furnish matter for their moral gibing;
And that their books have but one style in common-My lady's prattle, filter'd through her woman.
But this can't well be true, just now; for writers Are grown of the beau monde a part potential:
I 've seen them balance even the scale with fighters, Especially when young, for that 's essential.
Why do their sketches fail them as inditers Of what they deem themselves most consequential, The real portrait of the highest tribe?
'T is that, in fact, there 's little to describe.
'Haud ignara loquor;' these are Nugae, 'quarum Pars parva fui,' but still art and part.
Now I could much more easily sketch a harem, A battle, wreck, or history of the heart, Than these things; and besides, I wish to spare 'em, For reasons which I choose to keep apart.
'Vetabo Cereris sacrum qui vulgarit-'
Which means that vulgar people must not share it.
And therefore what I throw off is ideal-Lower'd, leaven'd, like a history of freemasons;
Which bears the same relation to the real, As Captain Parry's voyage may do to Jason's.
The grand arcanum 's not for men to see all;
My music has some mystic diapasons;
And there is much which could not be appreciated In any manner by the uninitiated.
Alas! worlds fall- and woman, since she fell'd The world (as, since that history less polite Than true, hath been a creed so strictly held)
Has not yet given up the practice quite.
Poor thing of usages! coerced, compell'd, Victim when wrong, and martyr oft when right, Condemn'd to child-bed, as men for their sins Have shaving too entail'd upon their chins,-A daily plague, which in the aggregate May average on the whole with parturition.
But as to women, who can penetrate The real sufferings of their she condition?
Man's very sympathy with their estate Has much of selfishness, and more suspicion.
Their love, their virtue, beauty, education, But form good housekeepers, to breed a nation.
All this were very well, and can't be better;
But even this is difficult, Heaven knows, So many troubles from her birth beset her, Such small distinction between friends and foes, The gilding wears so soon from off her fetter, That- but ask any woman if she'd choose (Take her at thirty, that is) to have been Female or male? a schoolboy or a queen?
'Petticoat influence' is a great reproach, Which even those who obey would fain be thought To fly from, as from hungry pikes a roach;
But since beneath it upon earth we are brought, By various joltings of life's hackney coach, I for one venerate a petticoat-A garment of a mystical sublimity, No matter whether russet, silk, or dimity.
Much I respect, and much I have adored, In my young days, that chaste and goodly veil, Which holds a treasure, like a miser's hoard, And more attracts by all it doth conceal-A golden scabbard on a Damasque sword, A loving letter with a mystic seal, A cure for grief- for what can ever rankle Before a petticoat and peeping ankle?
And when upon a silent, sullen day, With a sirocco, for example, blowing, When even the sea looks dim with all its spray, And sulkily the river's ripple 's flowing, And the sky shows that very ancient gray, The sober, sad antithesis to glowing,-'T is pleasant, if then any thing is pleasant, To catch a glimpse even of a pretty peasant.
We left our heroes and our heroines In that fair clime which don't depend on climate, Quite independent of the Zodiac's signs, Though certainly more difficult to rhyme at, Because the sun, and stars, and aught that shines, Mountains, and all we can be most sublime at, Are there oft dull and dreary as a dun-Whether a sky's or tradesman's is all one.
An in-door life is less poetical;
And out of door hath showers, and mists, and sleet, With which I could not brew a pastoral.
But be it as it may, a bard must meet All difficulties, whether great or small, To spoil his undertaking or complete, And work away like spirit upon matter, Embarrass'd somewhat both with fire and water.
Juan- in this respect, at least, like saints-Was all things unto people of all sorts, And lived contentedly, without complaints, In camps, in ships, in cottages, or courts-Born with that happy soul which seldom faints, And mingling modestly in toils or sports.
He likewise could be most things to all women, Without the coxcombry of certain she men.
A fox-hunt to a foreigner is strange;
'T is also subject to the double danger Of tumbling first, and having in exchange Some pleasant jesting at the awkward stranger:
But Juan had been early taught to range The wilds, as doth an Arab turn'd avenger, So that his horse, or charger, hunter, hack, Knew that he had a rider on his back.
And now in this new field, with some applause, He clear'd hedge, ditch, and double post, and rail, And never craned, and made but few 'faux pas,'
And only fretted when the scent 'gan fail.
He broke, 't is true, some statutes of the laws Of hunting- for the sagest youth is frail;
Rode o'er the hounds, it may be, now and then, And once o'er several country gentlemen.
But on the whole, to general admiration He acquitted both himself and horse: the squires Marvell'd at merit of another nation;
The boors cried 'Dang it? who 'd have thought it?'- Sires, The Nestors of the sporting generation, Swore praises, and recall'd their former fires;
The huntsman's self relented to a grin, And rated him almost a whipper-in.
Such were his trophies- not of spear and shield, But leaps, and bursts, and sometimes foxes' brushes;