by Thomas Moore
“My throne, like Magna Charta, raise
“‘Mong sturdy, free-born legs and arms,
“That scorn the threatened chaine anglaise.”
’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.
Full fronting her stood Country Dance —
A fresh, frank nymph, whom you would know
For English, at a single glance —
English all o’er, from top to toe.
A little gauche, ’tis fair to own,
And rather given to skips and bounces;
Endangering thereby many a gown,
And playing, oft, the devil with flounces.
Unlike Mamselle — who would prefer
(As morally a lesser ill)
A thousand flaws of character,
To one vile rumple of a frill.
No rouge did She of Albion wear;
Let her but run that two-heat race
She calls a Set, not Dian e’er
Came rosier from the woodland chase.
Such was the nymph, whose soul had in’t
Such anger now — whose eyes of blue
(Eyes of that bright, victorious tint,
Which English maids call “Waterloo”) —
Like summer lightnings, in the dusk
Of a warm evening, flashing broke.
While — to the tune of “Money Musk,”1
Which struck up now — she proudly spoke —
“Heard you that strain — that joyous strain?
“’Twas such as England loved to hear,
“Ere thou and all thy frippery train,
“Corrupted both her foot and ear —
“Ere Waltz, that rake from foreign lands,
“Presumed, in sight of all beholders,
“To lay his rude, licentious hands
“On virtuous English backs and shoulders —
“Ere times and morals both grew bad,
“And, yet unfleeced by funding block-heads,
“Happy John Bull not only had,
“But danced to, ‘Money in both pockets.’
“Alas, the change! — Oh, Londonderry,
“Where is the land could ‘scape disasters,
“With such a Foreign Secretary,
“Aided by Foreign Dancing Masters?
“Woe to ye, men of ships and shops!
“Rulers of day-books and of waves!
“Quadrilled, on one side, into fops,
“And drilled, on t’other, into slaves!
“Ye, too, ye lovely victims, seen,
“Like pigeons, trussed for exhibition,
“With elbows, à la crapaudine,
“And feet, in — God knows what position;
“Hemmed in by watchful chaperons,
“Inspectors of your airs and graces,
“Who intercept all whispered tones,
“And read your telegraphic faces;
“Unable with the youth adored,
“In that grim cordon of Mammas,
“To interchange one tender word,
“Tho’ whispered but in queue-de-chats.
“Ah did you know how blest we ranged,
“Ere vile Quadrille usurpt the fiddle —
“What looks in setting were exchanged,
“What tender words in down the middle;
“How many a couple, like the wind,
“Which nothing in its course controls,
Left time and chaperons far behind,
“And gave a loose to legs and souls;
How matrimony throve — ere stopt
“By this cold, silent, foot-coquetting —
“How charmingly one’s partner propt
“The important question in poussetteing.
“While now, alas — no sly advances —
“No marriage hints — all goes on badly —
“‘Twixt Parson Malthus and French Dances,
“We, girls, are at a discount sadly.
“Sir William Scott (now Baron Stowell)
“Declares not half so much is made
“By Licences — and he must know well —
“Since vile Quadrilling spoiled the trade.”
She ceased — tears fell from every Miss —
She now had touched the true pathetic: —
One such authentic fact as this,
Is worth whole volumes theoretic.
Instant the cry was “Country Dance!”
And the maid saw with brightening face,
The Steward of the night advance,
And lead her to her birthright place.
The fiddles, which awhile had ceased,
Now tuned again their summons sweet,
And, for one happy night, at least,
Old England’s triumph was complete.
1 An old English country dance.
GAZEL.
Haste, Maami, the spring is nigh;
Already, in the unopened flowers
That sleep around us, Fancy’s eye
Can see the blush of future bowers;
And joy it brings to thee and me,
My own beloved Maami!
The streamlet frozen on its way,
To feed the marble Founts of Kings,
Now, loosened by the vernal ray,
Upon its path exulting springs —
As doth this bounding heart to thee,
My ever blissful Maami!
Such bright hours were not made to stay;
Enough if they awhile remain,
Like Irem’s bowers, that fade away.
From time to time, and come again.
And life shall all one Irem be
For us, my gentle Maami.
O haste, for this impatient heart,
Is like the rose in Yemen’s vale,
That rends its inmost leaves apart
With passion for the nightingale;
So languishes this soul for thee,
My bright and blushing Maami!
LINES ON THE DEATH OF JOSEPH AT
KINSON, ESQ., OF DUBLIN.
If ever life was prosperously cast,
If ever life was like the lengthened flow
Of some sweet music, sweetness to the last,
’Twas his who, mourned by many, sleeps below.
The sunny temper, bright where all is strife.
The simple heart above all worldly wiles;
Light wit that plays along the calm of life,
And stirs its languid surface into smiles;
Pure charity that comes not in a shower,
Sudden and loud, oppressing what it feeds,
But, like the dew, with gradual silent power,
Felt in the bloom it leaves along the meads;
The happy grateful spirit, that improves
And brightens every gift by fortune given;
That, wander where it will with those it loves,
Makes every place a home, and home a heaven:
All these were his. — Oh, thou who read’st this stone,
When for thyself, thy children, to the sky
Thou humbly prayest, ask this boon alone,
That ye like him may live, like him may die!
GENIUS AND CRITICISM.
scripsit quidem fata, sed sequitur.
SENECA.
Of old, the Sultan Genius reigned,
As Nature meant, supreme alone;
With mind unchekt, and hands unchained,
His views, his conquests were his own.
But power like his, that digs its grave
With its own sceptre, could not last;
So Genius’ self became the slave
Of laws that Genius’ self had past.
As Jove, who forged the chain of Fate,
Was, ever after, doomed to wear it:
His nods, his struggles all too late —
“Qui semel jussit, semper paret.”
To check young Genius’ proud career,
The slaves who now his throne invaded,
Made Criticism his prime Vizir,
And from that hour his glories faded.
Tied down in Legislation’s school,
Afraid of even his own ambition,
His very victories were by rule,
And he was great but by permission.
His most heroic deeds — the same,
That dazzled, when spontaneous actions —
Now, done by law, seemed cold and tame,
And shorn of all their first attractions.
If he but stirred to take the air,
Instant, the Vizir’s Council sat —
“Good Lord, your Highness can’t go there —
“Bless me, your Highness can’t do that.”
If, loving pomp, he chose to buy
Rich jewels for his diadem,
“The taste was bad, the price was high —
“A flower were simpler than a gem.”
To please them if he took to flowers —
“What trifling, what unmeaning things!
“Fit for a woman’s toilet hours,
“But not at all the style for Kings.”
If, fond of his domestic sphere,
He played no more the rambling comet —
“A dull, good sort of man, ’twas clear,
“But, as for great or brave, far from it.”
Did he then look o’er distant oceans,
For realms more worthy to enthrone him? —
“Saint Aristotle, what wild notions!
“Serve a ‘ne exeat regno’ on him.”
At length, their last and worst to do,
They round him placed a guard of watchmen,
Reviewers, knaves in brown, or blue
Turned up with yellow — chiefly Scotchmen;
To dog his footsteps all about
Like those in Longwood’s prison grounds,
Who at Napoleon’s heels rode out,
For fear the Conqueror should break bounds.
Oh for some Champion of his power,
Some Ultra spirit, to set free,
As erst in Shakespeare’s sovereign hour,
The thunders of his Royalty! —
To vindicate his ancient line,
The first, the true, the only one,
Of Right eternal and divine,
That rules beneath the blessed sun.
TO LADY JERSEY.
ON BEING ASKED TO WRITE SOMETHING IN HER ALBUM.
Written at Middleton.
Oh albums, albums, how I dread
Your everlasting scrap and scrawl!
How often wish that from the dead
Old Omar would pop forth his head,
And make a bonfire of you all!
So might I ‘scape the spinster band,
The blushless blues, who, day and night,
Like duns in doorways, take their stand,
To waylay bards, with book in hand,
Crying for ever, “Write, sir, write!”
So might I shun the shame and pain,
That o’er me at this instant come,
When Beauty, seeking Wit in vain,
Knocks at the portal of my brain,
And gets, for answer, “Not at home!”
November, 1828.
TO THE SAME.
ON LOOKING THROUGH HER ALBUM.
No wonder bards, both high and low,
From Byron down to * * * * * and me,
Should seek the fame which all bestow
On him whose task is praising thee.
Let but the theme be Jersey’s eyes,
At once all errors are forgiven;
As even old Sternhold still we prize,
Because, tho’ dull, he sings of heaven.
AT NIGHT.1
At night, when all is still around.
How sweet to hear the distant sound
Of footstep, coming soft and light!
What pleasure in the anxious beat,
With which the bosom flies to meet
That foot that comes so soft at night!
And then, at night, how sweet to say
“’Tis late, my love!” and chide delay,
Tho’ still the western clouds are bright;
Oh! happy, too, the silent press,
The eloquence of mute caress.
With those we love exchanged at night!
1 These lines allude to a curious lamp, which has for its device a Cupid, with the words “at night” written over him.
TO LADY HOLLAND.
ON NAPOLEON’S LEGACY OF A SNUFF-BOX.
Gift of the Hero, on his dying day,
To her, whose pity watched, for ever nigh;
Oh! could he see the proud, the happy ray,
This relic lights up on her generous eye,
Sighing, he’d feel how easy ’tis to pay
A friendship all his kingdoms could not buy.
Paris, July, 1821
EPILOGUE.
WRITTEN FOR LADY DACRE’S TRAGEDY OF INA.
Last night, as lonely o’er my fire I sat,
Thinking of cues, starts, exits, and — all that,
And wondering much what little knavish sprite
Had put it first in women’s heads to write: —
Sudden I saw — as in some witching dream —
A bright-blue glory round my book-case beam,
From whose quick-opening folds of azure light
Out flew a tiny form, as small and bright
As Puck the Fairy, when he pops his head,
Some sunny morning from a violet bed.
“Bless me!” I starting cried “what imp are you?” —
“A small he-devil, Ma’am — my name BAS BLEU —
“A bookish sprite, much given to routs and reading;
“’Tis I who teach your spinsters of good breeding,
“The reigning taste in chemistry and caps,
“The last new bounds of tuckers and of maps,
“And when the waltz has twirled her giddy brain
“With metap
hysics twirl it back again!”
I viewed him, as he spoke — his hose were blue,
His wings — the covers of the last Review —
Cerulean, bordered with a jaundice hue,
And tinselled gayly o’er, for evening wear,
Till the next quarter brings a new-fledged pair.
“Inspired by me — (pursued this waggish Fairy) —
“That best of wives and Sapphos, Lady Mary,
“Votary alike of Crispin and the Muse,
“Makes her own splay-foot epigrams and shoes.
“For me the eyes of young Camilla shine,
“And mingle Love’s blue brilliances with mine;
“For me she sits apart, from coxcombs shrinking,
“Looks wise — the pretty soul! — and thinks she’s thinking.
“By my advice Miss Indigo attends
“Lectures on Memory, and assures her friends,
“‘‘Pon honor! — (mimics) — nothing can surpass the plan
“‘Of that professor — (trying to recollect) — psha! that memory-man —
“‘That — what’s his name? — him I attended lately —
“‘‘Pon honor, he improved my memory greatly.’”
Here curtsying low, I asked the blue-legged sprite,
What share he had in this our play to-night.
‘Nay, there — (he cried) — there I am guiltless quite —
“What! choose a heroine from that Gothic time
“When no one waltzed and none but monks could rhyme;
“When lovely woman, all unschooled and wild,
“Blushed without art, and without culture smiled —
“Simple as flowers, while yet unclassed they shone,
“Ere Science called their brilliant world her own,
“Ranged the wild, rosy things in learned orders,
“And filled with Greek the garden’s blushing borders! —
“No, no — your gentle Inas will not do —
“To-morrow evening, when the lights burn blue,
“I’ll come — (pointing downwards) — you understand — till then adieu!”
And has the sprite been here! No — jests apart —
Howe’er man rules in science and in art,
The sphere of woman’s glories is the heart.
And, if our Muse have sketched with pencil true
The wife — the mother — firm, yet gentle too —
Whose soul, wrapt up in ties itself hath spun,
Trembles, if touched in the remotest one;
Who loves — yet dares even Love himself disown,
When Honor’s broken shaft supports his throne:
If such our Ina, she may scorn the evils,
Dire as they are, of Critics and — Blue Devils.
