University of Virginia Library

“The Dowager's?”—“The Sunday party,
A Waltz, a Concert, and Ecarté;
It takes—the whole live world are there:
I never get beyond the stair.”
“Traitre, you volunteer the station.”
“Why, 'tis convenient for flirtation:
There, like an angler on his weir,
One chooses from the ascending fair;
Or, like the sportsman, pulls the string
And nets the covey in its spring.
There, as the crowd sets strongly in,
Scarce thinking suicide a sin—
(The rooms your true Calcutta heat,
Thermometer at ninety-eight)—
When stript of silk, and ript of lace,
Crushes your ribs some battling Grace;
Or, hung upon your back, some nymph
Half melts into her native lymph;—
When, not to your expiring prayer
Your dearest friend would lend her chair.
Not wishing to depart this life,
I take some widow, maid, or wife,
And, perch'd among the staircase blooms,
Eschew the distant war of plumes;
Or, nestling in the boudoir window,
Watch coolly what the world within do.”
“And try on all the self-same glances?”
“Why, that's selon les circonstances.”
“If maid?”—“I look the sentimental!”
“First having ascertained her rental:”
“Show her the moonlight through the trees;
Let on her cheek the garden breeze;
Talk Petrarch, troubadours, guitars,
Crusaders, Shakspeare, streams, and stars.”
“If widow?”—“Satirize her set—
Her secret soul will pay the debt.”
“If wife.”—“Fill both her ears with scandal:
Her husband furnishing the handle!”