But all such ideas have of course now gone by
In times when the fashions do Nature defy.
As I was just saying, our “charmante Française,”
Deluded as all of us were in those days,
Was tortured with agony now at the thought
Of the change which the spinal affection had wrought
In her whose fine figure, a short time ago,
Arrayed in rare furbelows, made such a show
On the “Boulevards;” also when on her white mare,
Erect and in “stove-pipe” she pranced with the air