The lad leap’d lightly at his master’s call:
He was, to weet, a little rogueish page,
Save sleep and play who minded naught at all,
Like most the untaught striplings of the age.
This boy he kept each band to disengage,
Garters and buckles, task for him unfit,
But ill becoming his grave personage,
And which his portly paunch would not permit,
So this same limber page to all performed it.
Meantime the master-porter wide display’d
Great store of caps, of slippers, and of gowns;
Wherewith he those that enter’d in array’d.
Loose, as the breeze that plays along the downs,
And waves the summer-woods when evening frowns,
O fair undress, best dress! it checks no vein,
But every flowing limb in pleasure drowns,
And heightens ease with grace, this done, right fain
Sir porter sat him down, and turned to sleep again.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 61·40.
[234] The Times, July 1, 1826.
