LADY ARABELLA FUSTIAN TO LORD CLARENCE FUSTIAN.
—Sweet, when Actors first appear
The loud collision of applauding gloves!
MOULTRIE.
Your labors, my talented brother,
Are happily over at last;
They tell me that, some how or other,
The bill is rejected,—or past:
And now you'll be coming, I'm certain,
As fast as four posters can crawl,
To help us draw up our curtain,
As usual, at Fustian Hall.
Arrangements, are nearly completed;
But still we've a lover or two,
Whom Lady Albina entreated,
We'd keep, at all hazards, for you:
Sir Arthur makes horrible faces,—
Lord John is a trifle too tall,—
And yours are the safest embraces
To faint in, at Fustian Hall.
Come, Clarence;—it's really enchanting
To listen and look at the rout;
We're all of us puffing, and panting,
And raving, and running about;
Here Kitty and Adelaide bustle;
There Andrew and Anthony bawl;
Flutes murmur, chains rattle, robes rustle,
In chorus, at Fustian Hall.
By the bye, there are two or three matters
We want you to bring us from town;
The Inca's white plumes from the hatter's,
A nose and a hump for the Clown:
We want a few harps for our banquet,
We want a few masks for our ball;
And steal from your wise friend Bosanquet
His white wig, for Fustian Hall.
Huncamunca must have a huge saber,
Friar Tuck has forgotten his cowl;
And we're quite at a stand-still with Weber,
For want of a lizard and owl:
And then, for our funeral procession,
Pray get us a love of a pall;
Or how shall we make an impression
On feelings, at Fustian Hall?
And, Clarence, you'll really delight us,
If you'll do your endeavor to bring
From the Club a young person to write us
Our prologue, and that sort of thing;
Poor Crotchet, who did them supremely,
Is gone, for a Judge, to Bengal;
I fear we shall miss him extremely,
This season, at Fustian Hall.
Come, Clarence;—your idol Albina
Will make a sensation, I feel;
We all think there never was seen a
Performer, so like the O'Neill.
At rehearsals, her exquisite fancy
Has deeply affected us all;
For one tear that trickles at Drury,
There'll be twenty at Fustian Hall.
Dread objects are scattered before her,
On purpose to harrow her soul;
She stares, till a deep spell comes o'er her,
At a knife, or a cross, or a bowl.
The sword never seems to alarm her,
That hangs on a peg to the wall,
And she doats on thy rusty old armor
Lord Fustian, of Fustian Hall.