'Twas thus she said, as mid the din
Of footmen, and the town sedan,
She lighted at the King's Head Inn,
And up the stairs triumphant ran.
The Squires and their Squiresses all,
With young Squirinas, just come out,
And my Lord's daughters from the Hall,
(Quadrillers in their hearts no doubt,)—
All these, as light she tript upstairs,
Were in the cloak-room seen assembling—
When, hark! some new outlandish airs,
From the First Fiddle, set her trembling.
She stops—she listens—can it be?
Alas, in vain her ears would 'scape it—
It is "Di tanti palpiti"
As plain as English bow can scrape it.
"Courage!" however—in she goes,
With her best, sweeping country grace;
When, ah too true, her worst of foes,
Quadrille, there meets her, face to face.
Oh for the lyre, or violin,
Or kit of that gay Muse, Terpsichore,
To sing the rage these nymphs were in,
Their looks and language, airs and trickery.
There stood Quadrille, with cat-like face
(The beau-ideal of French beauty),
A band-box thing, all art and lace
Down from her nose-tip to her shoe-tie.
Her flounces, fresh from Victorine—
From Hippolyte, her rouge and hair—
Her poetry, from Lamartine—
Her morals, from—the Lord knows where.
And, when she danced—so slidingly,
So near the ground she plied her art,
You'd swear her mother-earth and she
Had made a compact ne'er to part.
Her face too, all the while, sedate,
No signs of life or motion showing.
Like a bright pendule's dial-plate—
So still, you'd hardly think 'twas going.