What wonder, then, if Miss Kilmansegg,
With a splendid, brilliant, beautiful leg,
Fit for the court of Scander-Beg,
Disdain’d to hide it like Joan or Meg,
In petticoats stuff’d or quilted?
Not she! ’twas her convalescent whim
To dazzle the world with her precious limb,—
Nay, to go a little high-kilted.
So cards were sent for that sort of mob
Where Tartars and Africans hob-and-nob,
And the Cherokee talks of his cab and cob
To Polish or Lapland lovers—
Cards like that hieroglyphical call
To a geographical Fancy Ball
On the recent Post-Office covers.
For if Lion-hunters—and great ones too—
Would mob a savage from Latakoo,
Or squeeze for a glimpse of Prince Lee Boo,
That unfortunate Sandwich scion—
Hundreds of first-rate people, no doubt,
Would gladly, madly, rush to a rout,
That promised a Golden Lion!
[Her Fancy Ball.]
Of all the spirits of evil fame,
That hurt the soul or injure the frame,
And poison what’s honest and hearty,
There’s none more needs a Matthew to preach
A cooling antiphlogistic speech,
To praise and enforce
A temperate course,
Than the Evil Spirit of Party.
Go to the House of Commons, or Lords,
And they seem to be busy with simple words
In their popular sense or pedantic—
But, alas! with their cheers, and sneers, and jeers,
They’re really busy, whatever appears,
Putting peas in each other’s ears,
To drive their enemies frantic!
Thus Tories like to worry the Whigs,
Who treat them in turn like Schwalbach pigs,
Giving them lashes, thrashes, and digs,
With their writhing and pain delighted—
But after all that’s said, and more,
The malice and spite of Party are poor
To the malice and spite of a party next door,
To a party not invited.
On with the cap and out with the light,
Weariness bids the world good night,
At least for the usual season;
But hark! a clatter of horses’ heels!
And Sleep and Silence are broken on wheels,
Like Wilful Murder and Treason!
Another crash—and the carriage goes—
Again poor Weariness seeks the repose
That Nature demands, imperious;
But Echo takes up the burden now,
With a rattling chorus of row-de-dow-dow,
Till Silence herself seems making a row,
Like a Quaker gone delirious!
’Tis night—a winter night—and the stars
Are shining like winkin’—Venus and Mars
Are rolling along in their golden cars
Through the sky’s serene expansion—
But vainly the stars dispense their rays,
Venus and Mars are lost in the blaze
Of the Kilmanseggs’ luminous mansion!