The Age Reviewed A Satire: In two parts: Second edition, revised and corrected [by Robert Montgomery] |
 |
 | The Age Reviewed |  |
Miss Thomas Moore,
by J--- puff'd to fame,—
L---, or ------, whate'er thy name,—
So fervid, flowery, sparkling in thy page,
Let school-girls trump thee Sappho of the age!
Through thee, how oft that urchin, Love, appears
In fev'rish sighs, and sweetly-dribbled tears;—
Now weaving fetters to enslave the sad,
Now coyly warm till every Miss is mad;
With head delirious, and presumptive toes,
He pants, and frisks, and tickles as he goes.
And then thy style! so Sapphic and divine!
Such tender super-sentimental whine.
The raven lock,—the eye's all-melting beams,
The brow both hot and cold, from hopes and dreams;
The fumes of Araby, the breeze and flow'r,
The mellow croakings of a love-sick hour,—
All send us into dear delicious swoons,
Not often felt beneath thy naughty moons:
Fie on the senseless tongues that dare to speak
'Gainst thee, verse-fountain of the month and week!
While touchy J--- hums a “Proper Word,”
Thine am'rous stuff shall sooth the sighing herd;
Did Crusca live, how would he pine to see
A burning Anna, realized in thee?
How would he bay his stanzas to the moon,
And pant, and roll his raptures in a tune?
L---, or ------, whate'er thy name,—
So fervid, flowery, sparkling in thy page,
Let school-girls trump thee Sappho of the age!
Through thee, how oft that urchin, Love, appears
In fev'rish sighs, and sweetly-dribbled tears;—
148
Now coyly warm till every Miss is mad;
With head delirious, and presumptive toes,
He pants, and frisks, and tickles as he goes.
And then thy style! so Sapphic and divine!
Such tender super-sentimental whine.
The raven lock,—the eye's all-melting beams,
The brow both hot and cold, from hopes and dreams;
The fumes of Araby, the breeze and flow'r,
The mellow croakings of a love-sick hour,—
All send us into dear delicious swoons,
Not often felt beneath thy naughty moons:
Fie on the senseless tongues that dare to speak
'Gainst thee, verse-fountain of the month and week!
While touchy J--- hums a “Proper Word,”
Thine am'rous stuff shall sooth the sighing herd;
Did Crusca live, how would he pine to see
A burning Anna, realized in thee?
149
And pant, and roll his raptures in a tune?
One of the reviews was pleased to dub the author “unmanly,” for penning a few good-tempered sarcasms on this lady's productions: the author would not willingly give pain to that young lady's feelings, nor does he think her fame so fragile as to be injured by them. Though, like the rest of her poetical contemporaries, she is not void of fault, many of her productions are very elegant and neat. Still, it would have been disrespectful to have passed her over unnoticed, and the author had no honest choice but that of tenderly hinting at a few of her poetical faux-pas.
| The Age Reviewed | |