University of Virginia Library

While beaux and foplings simper mawkish praise
To lisping belles of these degenerate days,
For orient brilliant, or the smart aigrette
Of ostrich plumes, with taste and fancy set;
Till the fair head no longer can sustain
The waste of feather, and the want of brain:—
What praise deserves Almira, dauntless fair,
Who first aspir'd to lead a Dancing Bear?
Taught him to bound on firm elastic heel;
In winding orbits round the fair to wheel;
Advance, retreat, the twining maze pursue,
As wanton kittens use the trundling clue?—
So, charm'd by Orpheus' magic lyre, advance
The Thracian Bears to mingle in the dance,
While broad expands each clumsy, clutching paw;
And awful yawns each wide extended jaw;
With awkward force their lumpish limbs they fling;
And flounce, and hitch, and hobble round the ring:
While oft the minstrel paus'd, and smil'd to see
The monsters bounce against a capering tree.

But then no grateful brute in tuneful lays,
The music prais'd, as I thy dancing praise!
What though these rugged limbs forbid to trace
Each mazy figure, like the monkey race,
Yet, not devoid of skill, I boldly claim
The right to celebrate thy dancing fame.—
From Bears, the dancer's art at first began;
To monkeys next it past, and then to man;
And still from Bears, by fate's unerring law,
Their dance, their manners, men and monkeys draw.

Thus, mid the lucid wastes of Greenland's snow,
Where moon-beams wan with silver radiance glow,
And rocks of ice in misty grandeur rise,
And men seem giants of enormous size;
The fur-clad savage joys the feast to share,
Conducts the dance and imitates the Bear;
Assumes his clumsy gait with conscious pride,
And kicks, and scampers in the monster's hide,
Knocks round the shatter'd ice in slippery lumps,
And thumps the pavement, not with feet, but stumps;—
The grisly monster grins at man's disgrace,
And proudly holds the dancing-master's place.

In every region, and in every clime
Renown'd for beauty, genius, wit, and rhyme,
Where high the plant of fair politeness shoots,
And glittering blossoms bears, instead of fruits;—
Long did the beau claim kindred with the ape,
And shone a monkey of sublimer shape;
Skilful to flirt the hat, the cane, the glove,
And wear the pert grimace of monkey-love;
Of words unmeaning pour'd a ceaseless flood,
While ladies look'd as if they understood.
So chats one monkey, while his perter brother
Chatters as if he understood the other.

But modern beaux disdain the monkey air,
And in politeness ape the surly Bear;
Like their gruff brother-cubs beside the pole,
Supinely yawn or indolently loll;
Or, careless, seated in an elbow chair,
Survey the fretted roof with curious stare.
Secure of pleasing, should they wish to please,
They trust the fair may term their rudeness ease;—
The modish ease that no decorum checks,
That, proud of manhood, dares insult the sex.
And oft, as affectation's charms bewitch,
Their efforts rise to a sublimer pitch,
With maudlin looks the drunkard's mien to suit,
Anxious to seem a more degraded brute.
Such are the modish youths, at ball or play,
Edina's maids without contempt survey;
Whom if you with their fellow brutes compare,
They sink inferior to the honest Bear;
Prove man the only brute of nature's race
That sinks his rank and powers, and courts disgrace.
What Bear of parts, for human pranks unripe,
Pretends to smoke the slim tobacco-pipe?
Or needs for languor, in his social den,
To play at commerce, whist, or brag, like men?—
Be thine the praise that thou, Almira fair,
For a spruce beau didst choose a Dancing Bear:
For sure with men like these in order plac'd,
The Bear himself must prove a beast of taste.—
The Bear has power, as Indian ladies say,
To mend your vices, take your faults away;
And though he cannot female charms renew,
Removes the fault that shades them from the view.
As envious clouds forbid the sun to shine,
Or patches mar the human face divine.
Yet some pretend the Bears their talents hide,
As such experiments are seldom tried;
And some demand, to wit and beauty blind,
“Take all their faults, pray what remains behind?”
But let them sneer—the ladies swear they shall
Be lov'd for faults, or not be lov'd at all.
Virtues are strong, and need no kind affection;
They love their faults because these need protection.
Hence springs the cause that female hearts incline
The first in fashion's meteor-lists to shine,
While baby words soft affectation minces,
With “O the charming lace! the charming chintzes!”
Hence taught, they flirt with tittering skill the fan,
Or scan with optic glass the form of man;
They pant in silence, or exult in riot,
Absurdly prattlesome, absurdly quiet.

Almira, thou whom thy companions see
The soul of parties, yet not seem to be;
Doom'd to excel, yet never wish to shine,
Almira! say what faults wilt thou resign?
The wit, though fear'd by none, by all admir'd?
Good humour, prais'd by none, by all desir'd?
Softness of soul, to which our hearts submit?
The nameless grace, that pleases more than wit?
These are the powers that every bosom move
To love thee, though they never think of love;
And if we pause, we oft shall find it true,
We love the most when love is least in view.—
Are these thy faults, Almira? blest is he
Foredoom'd to lead the dance of life with thee.
But as thou tread'st the giddy circling maze
Of airy fashion, where each step betrays,
Still faultless hold thy course, intrepid fair,
Nor quite forget thy surly friend