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

“We want”—the Duchess said to me to-day,—
“We want, fair sir, a prologue for our play.
A charming play to show a charming robe in,
‘The Honeymoon’”—“By Phœbus!”—“No: by Tobin.”
“A prologue!”—I made answer—“if you need one,
In every street and square your Grace may read one.”

“Cruel Papa! don't talk about Sir Harry!”—
So Araminta lisped;—“I'll never marry;
I loathe all men; such unromantic creatures!
The coarsest tastes, and ah! the coarsest features!
Betty!—the salts!—I'm sick with mere vexation,
To hear them called the Lords of the Creation:
They swear fierce oaths, they seldom say their prayers;
And then, they shed no tears,—unfeeling bears!—
I, and the friend I share my sorrows with,
Medora Gertrude Wilhelmina Smith,

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Will weep together through the world's disasters,
In some green vale, unplagued by Lords and Masters,
And hand in hand repose at last in death,
As chaste and cold as Queen Elizabeth.”
She spoke in May, and people found in June,
This was her Prologue to the Honeymoon!

“Frederic is poor, I own it,” Fanny sighs,
“But then he loves me, and has deep blue eyes.
Since I was nine years old, and he eleven,
We've loved each other,—‘Love is light from Heaven!
And penury with love, I will not doubt it,
Is better far than palaces without it.
We'll have a quiet curacy in Kent;
We'll keep a cow; and we'll be so content.
Forgetting that my father drove fine horses,
And that my mother dined upon three courses,
There I shall sit, perusing Frederic's verses,
Dancing in spring, in winter knitting purses;
Mending the children's pinafores and frills,
Wreathing sweet flowers, and paying butcher's bills.”
Alas, poor Fanny!—she will find too soon
Her Prologue's better than her Honeymoon.

But lo! where Laura, with a frenzied air,
Seeks her kind cousin in her pony chair,
And, in a mournful voice, by thick sobs broke,
Cries “Yes, dear Anne! the favours are bespoke,

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I am to have him;—so my friends decided;
The stars knew quite as much of it as I did!
You know him, love;—he is so like a mummy:—
I wonder whether diamonds will become me!
He talks of nothing but the price of stocks;
However, I'm to have my opera box.
That pert thing, Ellen, thought she could secure him,—
I wish she had, I'm sure I can't endure him!
The cakes are ordered;—how my lips will falter
When I stand fainting at the marriage altar!
But I'm to have him!—Oh the vile baboon!”
Strange Prologue this for Laura's Honeymoon!

Enough of prologues; surely I should say
One word, before I go, about the play.
Instead of hurrying madly after marriage
To some lord's villa in a travelling carriage,
Instead of seeking earth's remotest ends
To hide their blushes and avoid their friends,
Instead of haunting lonely lanes and brooks
With no companions but the doves and rooks,—
Our Duke and Duchess open wide their Hall,
And bid you warmly welcome, one and all,
Who come with hearts of kindness, eyes of light,
To see, and share, their Honeymoon to-night.

January 19, 1830.