* * * * *
"And lo! the heiress, Miss Kilmansegg,
With her splendid, brilliant, beautiful leg,
In the garb of a Goddess olden—
Like chaste Diana going to hunt
With a golden spear—which of course was blunt,
And a tunic looped up to a gem in front,
To show the leg was golden."
The fancy ball was a great success, and at supper—which the poet describes in glowing language—the heiress's health was proposed:
"'Miss Kilmansegg,
Full glasses I beg.
Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg!'
And away went the bottle careering!
Wine in bumpers! and shouts in peals!
Till the clown didn't know his head from his heels,
The Mussulman's eyes danced two-some reels,
And the Quaker was hoarse with cheering!"
The party being over, and the last guest gone, Miss Kilmansegg went to bed and to dream:
"Miss Kilmansegg took off her leg
And laid it down like a cribbage-peg,
For the rout was done and the riot;
The square was hushed, not a sound was heard
The sky was gray, and no creature stirr'd
Except one little precocious bird
That chirped—and then was quiet.
* * * * *
"And then on the bed her frame she cast,
The time for repose had come at last;
But long, long after the storm is past
Rolls the turbid, turbulent billow."
She dreams:
"Gold! she saw at her golden foot
The Peer whose tree has an olden root;
The Proud, the Great, the Learned to boot,
The handsome, the gay, and the witty—
The man of Science—of Arms—of Art,
The man who deals but at Pleasure's mart,
And the man who deals in the City."