DANCING.
I never to a ball will go,
That poor pretence for prancing,
Where Jenkins dislocates a toe,
And Tomkins thinks he's dancing:
And most I execrate that ball,
Of balls the most atrocious,
Held yearly in old Magog's hall,
The feasting and ferocious.
I execrate the mob, the squeeze,
The rough refreshment-scramble:
The dancers, keeping time with knees
That knock as down they amble;
Between two lines of bankers' clerks,
Stared at by two of loobies—
All mighty fine for city sparks,
But all and each one boobies:—
Boobies with heads like poodle-dogs,
With curls like clew-lines dangling;
With limbs like galvanizing frogs,
And necks stiff-starched and strangling;
With pigeon-breasts and pigeon-wings,
And waists like wasps and spiders;
With whiskers like Macready's kings',
Mustachios like El Hyder's.
Miss Jones, the Moorfields milliner,
With Toilinet, the draper,
May waltz—for none are willinger
To cut cloth or a caper.—
Miss Moses of the Minories,
With Mr. Wicks of Wapping,
May love such light tracasseries,
Such shuffle shoe and hopping:
Miss Hicks, the belle of Holywell,
And pride of Norton Falgate,
In waltzing may the world excel,
Except Miss Hicks of Aldgate.
Well, let them—'tis their nature—twirl,
And Smiths adore their twirlings,
Which kill with envy every girl
That fingers lace at Urling's,
I laugh while I lament to see
A fellow, made to measure
'Gainst grenadiers of six feet three,
"Die down the dance" with pleasure.
I laugh to see a man with thews
His way through Misses picking,
Like pig with tender pettitoes,
Or chicken-hearted chicken;
A tom-cat shod with walnut-shells,
A pony race in pattens,
A wagon-horse tricked out with bells,
A sow in silks and satins,
A butcher's hair en papillote,
And lounging Piccadilly,
A clown in an embroidered coat,
Are not more gauche and silly.
Let atoms take their dusty dance,
But men are not corpuscles:
An Englishman's not made in France,
Nor wire and buckram muscles.
The manly leap, the breathing race,
The wrestle, or old cricket,
Give to the limbs a native grace—
So, here's for double-wicket.
Leave dancing to the women, Men—
In them it is becoming;—
I never tire to see them, when
Joe Hart his fiddle's strumming,
Or Colinet and mild Musard
Have set their hearts quadrilling;—
Then be each nymph a gay Brocard,
And every woman killing.
I love to see the pretty dears
Go lightly caracolling,
And drinking love at eyes and ears,
With every look their soul in!
I like to watch the swan-like grace
They show in minuetting.
It hits one's bosom's tenderest place,
To see them pirouetting.
But when a measurer of tape
Turns butterfly and dandy,
Assumes their grace, their air, their shape,
I wish a pump were handy!
I never to such balls will go,
Those poor pretexts for prancing;
Where Jenkins dislocates his toe,
And Tomkins thinks he's dancing.
Monthly Magazine.