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London lyrics

by Frederick Locker Lampson: With introduction and notes by Austin Dobson

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143

WRITTEN UNDER A MEZZOTINT ENGRAVING OF WHICH THE TITLE HAD BEEN CUT OFF

Dear Gadabout, your skirts reveal
A little, peeping, scarlet heel,
Your scarf would make a perfect sonnet,
I wonder who composed your bonnet?
Fond wife are you, or faithful maid?
Or meek-eyed nun in masquerade?
But while I gaze there comes a doubt,
Conjecture to conjecture linking,
Of what I wonder are you thinking?
And what's that book (Vol. I) about?
Are you Honoria—learned—witty?
Or only commonplace and Kitty?
Conjecture makes me critical,
Are you so perfect, after all?
Some booby, of a byegone day,
Has cut this Fair One's name away,
And so I've written down, d'ye see,
My nonsense, where it used to be.