THE FANCY BALL.
“A visor for a visor! What care I
What curious eye doth quote deformities?”
—Romeo and Juliet.
“You used to talk,” said Miss MacCall,
“Of flowers, and flames, and Cupid;
But now you never talk at all;
You’re getting vastly stupid:
You’d better burn your Blackstone, sir,
You never will get through it;
There’s a Fancy Ball at Winchester,—
Do let us take you to it!”
I made that night a solemn vow
To startle all beholders;
I wore white muslin on the brow,
Green velvet on my shoulders;
My trousers were supremely wide,
I learnt to swear “by Allah!”
I stuck a poniard by my side,
And called myself “Abdallah.”
Oh, a fancy ball’s a strange affair!
Made up of silk and leathers,
Light heads, light heels, false hearts, false hair,
Pins, paint, and ostrich feathers:
The dullest duke in all the town,
To-day may shine a droll one;
And rakes, who have not half-a-crown,
Look royal in a whole one.
Go, call the lawyer from his pleas,
The schoolboy from his Latin;
Be stoics here in ecstasies,
And savages in satin;
Let young and old forego—forget
Their labour and their sorrow,
And none—except the Cabinet—
Take counsel for the morrow.
Begone, dull care! This life of ours
Is very dark and chilly;
We’ll sleep through all its serious hours,
And laugh through all its silly.
Be mine such motley scene as this,
Where, by established usance,
Miss Gravity is quite amiss,
And Madam Sense a nuisance!
Hail, blest Confusion! here are met
All tongues and times and faces,
The Lancers flirt with Juliet,
The Brahmin talks of races;
And where’s your genuis, bright Corinne?
And where’s your brogue, Sir Lucius?
And Chinca Ti, you have not seen
One chapter of Confucius.
Lo! dandies from Kamschatka flirt
With Beauties from the Wrekin;
And belles from Berne look very pert
On Mandarins from Pekin;
The Cardinal is here from Rome,
The Commandant from Seville;
And Hamlet’s father from the tomb,
And Faustus from the Devil.
O sweet Anne Page!—those dancing eyes
Have peril in their splendour!
“O sweet Anne Page!”—so Slender sighs,
And what am I, but slender?
Alas! when next your spells engage
So fond and starved a sinner,
My pretty Page, be Shakespeare’s Page,
And ask the fool to dinner!