THE FAIRY’S GIFT.
“Take short views.”—Sydney Smith.
The Fays that to my christ’ning came
(For come they did, my nurses taught me),
They did not bring me wealth or fame,
’Tis very little that they brought me.
But one, the crossest of the crew,
The ugly old one, uninvited,
Said, “I shall be avenged on you,
My child; you shall grow up short-sighted!”
With magic juices did she lave
Mine eyes, and wrought her wicked pleasure.
Well, of all gifts the Fairies gave,
Hers is the present that I treasure!
The bore whom others fear and flee,
I do not fear, I do not flee him;
I pass him calm as calm can be;
I do not cut—I do not see him!
And with my feeble eyes and dim,
Where you see patchy fields and fences,
For me the mists of Turner swim—
My “azure distance” soon commences!
Nay, as I blink about the streets
Of this befogged and miry city,
Why, almost every girl one meets
Seems preternaturally pretty!
“Try spectacles,” one’s friends intone;
“You’ll see the world correctly through them.”
But I have visions of my own,
And not for worlds would I undo them.
BENEDETTA RAMUS.
AFTER ROMNEY.
Mysterious Benedetta! who
That Reynolds or that Romney drew
Was ever half so fair as you,
Or is so well forgot?
These eyes of melancholy brown,
These woven locks, a shadowy crown,
Must surely have bewitched the town;
Yet you’re remembered not.
Through all that prattle of your age,
Through lore of fribble and of sage
I’ve read, and chiefly Walpole’s page,
Wherein are beauties famous;
I’ve haunted ball, and rout, and sale;
I’ve heard of Devonshire and Thrale,
And all the Gunnings’ wondrous tale,
But nothing of Miss Ramus.
And yet on many a lattice pane
‘Fair Benedetta,’ scrawled in vain
By lovers’ diamonds, must remain
To tell us you were cruel. [108]
But who, of all that sighed and swore—
Wits, poets, courtiers by the score—
Did win and on his bosom wore
This hard and lovely jewel?
Why, dilettante records say
An Alderman, who came that way,
Woo’d you and made you Lady Day;
You crowned his civic flame.
It suits a melancholy song
To think your heart had suffered wrong,
And that you lived not very long
To be a City dame!