The Poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed :: :: University of Virginia Library

“For she in shape and beauty did excel
All other idols that the heathen do adore:
[OMITTED]
And all about her altar scattered lay
Great sorts of lovers piteously complaining.”
Spenser.

A look as blithe, a step as light,
As fabled nymph or fairy sprite;
A voice, whose every word and tone
Might make a thousand hearts its own;
A brow of fervour, and a mien
Bright with the hopes of gay fifteen;
These, loved and lost one! these were thine,
When first I bowed at Beauty's shrine.
But I have torn my wavering soul
From woman's proud and weak control;
The fane where I so often knelt,
The flame my heart so truly felt,
Are visions of another time,
Themes for my laughter—and my rhyme.

She saw and conquered; in her eye
There was a careless cruelty
That shone destruction, while it seemed
Unconscious of the fire it beamed.

And oh! that negligence of dress,
That wild infantine playfulness,
That archness of the trifling brow
That could command—we knew not how—
Were links of gold, that held me then
In bonds I may not bear again;
For dearer to an honest heart
Is childhood's mirth than woman's art.

Already many an aged dame,
Skilful in scandalizing fame,
Foresaw the reign of Laura's face,
Her sway, her folly, and disgrace:
Minding the beauty of the day
More than her partner, or her play,—
“Laura a beauty?—flippant chit!
I vow I hate her forward wit!”—
(“I lead a club”)—“Why, ma'am, between us,
Her mother thinks her quite a Venus;
But every parent loves, you know,
To make a pigeon of her crow.”—
“Some folks are apt to look too high:
She has a dukedom in her eye.”—
“The girl is straight,”—(“we call the ace”)—
“But that's the merit of her stays.”—
“I'm sure I loathe malicious hints—
But—only look, how Laura squints!”—

“Yet Miss, forsooth,”—(“who played the ten?”)—
“Is quite perfection with the men,—
The flattering fools—they make me sick!”—
(“Well—four by honours, and the trick!”)

While thus the crones hold high debate
On Laura's charms and Laura's fate,
A few short years have rolled along,
And—first in pleasure's idle throng—
Laura, in ripened beauty proud,
Smiles haughty on the flattering crowd;
Her sex's envy, Fashion's boast,
An heiress, and a reigning toast.

The circling waltz and gay quadrille
Are in, or out, at Laura's will;
The tragic bard and comic wit
Heed not the critic in the pit,
If Laura's undisputed sway
Ordains full houses to the play;
And fair ones of a humbler fate,
That envy, while they imitate,
From Laura's whisper strive to guess
The changes of inconstant dress.
Where'er her step in beauty moves,
Around her fly a thousand loves;
A thousand graces go before,
While striplings wonder and adore:

And some are wounded by a sigh,
Some by the lustre of her eye;
And these her studied smiles ensnare,
And these the ringlets of her hair.

The first his fluttering heart to lose
Was Captain Piercy, of the Blues;
He squeezed her hand, he gazed, and swore
He never was in love before:
He entertained his charmer's ear
With tales of wonder and of fear;
Talked much and long of siege and fight,
Marches by day, alarms by night:
And Laura listened to the story,
Whether it spoke of love or glory;
For many an anecdote had he
Of combat, and of gallantry,
Of long blockades and sharp attacks,
Of bullets and of bivouacs,
Of towns o'ercome—and ladies too,—
Of billet—and of billet-doux,
Of nunneries—and escalades,
And damsels—and Damascus blades

Alas! too soon the captain found
How swiftly Fortune's wheel goes round:
Laura at last began to doze
Even in the midst of Badajoz,

And hurried to a game at loo
From Wellington and Waterloo.
The hero, in heroics left,
Of fortune and a wife bereft,
With nought to cheer his close of day
But celibacy and half pay,
Since Laura and his stars were cruel,
Sought his quietus in a duel.

He fought and perished: Laura sighed
To hear how hapless Piercy died,
And wiped her eyes, and thus expressed
The feelings of her tender breast:—
“What? dead!—poor fellow—what a pity!
He was so handsome, and so witty:
Shot in a duel too!—good gracious!
How I did hate that man's mustachios!”

Next came the interesting beau,
The trifling youth, Frivolio;
He came to see and to be seen,
Grace and good breeding in his mien;
Shone all Delcroix upon his head;
The West-end spoke in all he said;
And in his neckcloth's studied fold
Sat Fashion on a throne of gold.
He came, impatient to resign
What heart he had at Laura's shrine:

Though deep in self-conceit encased,
He learnt to bow to Laura's taste;
Consulted her on new quadrilles,
Spot waistcoats, lavender, and gills:
As willed the proud and fickle fair
He tied his cloth and curled his hair;
Varied his manners—or his clothes,
And changed his tailor—or his oaths.

Oh! how did Laura love to vex
The fair one of the other sex!
For him she practised every art
That captivates and plagues the heart.
Did he bring tickets for the play?
No—Laura had the spleen to-day.
Did he escort her to the ball?
No—Laura would not dance at all.
Did he look grave?—“The fool was sad.”
Was he jocose?—“The man was mad.”
E'en when he knelt before her feet,
And there, in accents soft and sweet,
Laid rank and fortune, heart and hand,
At Laura's absolute command,—
Instead of blushing her consent,
She “wondered what the blockhead meant.

Yet still the fashionable fool
Was proud of Laura's ridicule;

Though still despised, he still pursued.
In ostentatious servitude;
Seeming, like lady's lap-dog, vain
Of being led by Beauty's chain.
He knelt, he gazed, he sighed and swore,
While 'twas the fashion to adore;
When years had passed, and Laura's frown
Had ceased to terrify the town,
He hurried from the fallen Grace
To idolize a newer face.
Constant to nothing was the ass,
Save to his follies, and his glass.

The next to gain the beauty's ear
Was William Lisle, the sonnetteer;
Well deemed the prince of rhyme and blank;
For long and deeply had he drank
Of Helicon's poetic tide,
Where nonsense flows, and numbers glide,
And slumbered on the herbage green
That decks the banks of Hippocrene.
In short—his very footmen know it—
William is mad—or else a poet.

He came and rhymed; he talked of fountains,
Of Pindus, and Pierian mountains,
Of wandering lambs, of gurgling rills,

And roses, and Castalian hills;
He thought a lover's vow grew sweeter
When it meandered into metre,
And planted every speech with flowers
Fresh blooming from Aonian bowers.

“Laura, I perish for your sake!”
(Here he digressed about a lake)—
“The charms thy features all disclose”—
(A simile about a rose)—
“Have set my very soul on fire;”
(An episode about his lyre)—
“Though you despise, I still must love;”
(Something about a turtle dove)—
“Alas! in death's unstartled sleep”—
(Just here he did his best to weep)—
“Laura, the willow soon shall wave
Over thy lover's lowly grave.”
Then he began with pathos due
To speak of cypress and of rue:
But fortune's unforeseen award
Parted the beauty from the bard;
For Laura, in that evil hour
When unpropitious stars had power,
Unmindful of the thanks she owed,
Lighted her taper with an ode!
Poor William all his vows forgot,
And hurried from the fatal spot

In all the bitterness of quarrel,
To write lampoons, and dream of laurel.

Years fleeted by, and every grace
Began to fade from Laura's face;
Through every circle whispers ran,
And aged dowagers began
To gratify their secret spite:—
“How shocking Laura looks to-night!
We know her waiting-maid is clever,
But rouge won't make one young for ever;
Laura should think of being sage,
You know she's of a certain age.”

Her wonted wit began to fail,
Her eyes grew dim, her features pale,
Her fame was past, her race was done;
Her lovers left her one by one;
Her slaves diminished by degrees,
They ceased to fawn, as she to please.
Last of the gay deceitful crew
Chremes, the usurer, withdrew;
By many an art he strove to net
The guineas of the rich coquette,
But (so the adverse fates decreed)
Chremes and Laura disagreed;
For Chremes talked too much of stocks
And Laura of her opera-box.

Unhappy Laura! sadness marred
What tints of beauty time had spared;
For all her wide extended sway
Had faded like a dream away,
And they that loved her passed her by
With altered or averted eye.
That silent scorn, that chilling air,
The fallen tyrant could not bear;
She could not live when none admired,
And perished, as her reign expired.

I gazed upon that lifeless form
So late with hope and fancy warm.—
That pallid brow,—that eye of jet
Where lustre seemed to linger yet,
Where sparkled through an auburn tress
The last dim light of loveliness,
Whose trembling ray was only seen
To bid us sigh for what had been.
Alas! I said my wavering soul
Was torn from woman's weak control;
But when, amid the evening's gloom,
I looked on Laura's early tomb,
And thought on her, so bright and fair,
That slumbered in oblivion there,
That calm resolve I could not keep,
And then I wept,—as now I weep.