The Talented Man

Dear Alice! you'll laugh when you know it, --
Last week, at the Duchess's ball,
I danced with the clever new poet, --
You've heard of him, -- Tully St. Paul.
Miss Jonquil was perfectly frantic;
I wish you had seen Lady Anne!
It really was very romantic,
He is such a talanted man!

He came up from Brazenose College,
Just caught, as they call it, this spring;
And his head, love, is stuffed full of knowledge
Of every conceivable thing.
Of science and logic he chatters,
As fine and as fast as he can;
Though I am no judge of such matters,
I'm sure he's a talented man.

His stories and jests are delightful; --
Not stories or jests, dear, for you;
The jests are exceedingly spiteful,
The stories not always quite true.
Perhaps to be kind and veracious
May do pretty well at Lausanne;
But it never would answer, -- good gracious!
Chez nous -- in a talented man.

He sneers, -- how my Alice would scold him! --
At the bliss of a sigh or a tear;
He laughed -- only think! -- when I told him
How we cried o'er Trevelyan last year;
I vow I was quite in a passion;
I broke all the sticks of my fan;
But sentiment's quite out of fashion,
It seems, in a talented man.

Lady Bab, who is terribly moral,
Has told me that Tully is vain,
And apt -- which is silly -- to quarrel,
And fond -- which is sad -- of champagne.
I listened, and doubted, dear Alice,
For I saw, when my Lady began,
It was only the Dowager's malice; --
She does hate a talented man!

He's hideous, I own it. But fame, love,
Is all that these eyes can adore;
He's lame, -- but Lord Byron was lame, love,
And dumpy, -- but so is Tom Moore.
Then his voice, -- such a voice! my sweet creature,
It's like your Aunt Lucy's toucan:
But oh! what's a tone or a feature,
When once one's a talented man?

My mother, you know, all the season,
Has talked of Sir Geoffrey's estate;
And truly, to do the fool reason,
He has been less horrid of late.
But today, when we drive in the carriage,
I'll tell her to lay down her plan; --
If ever I venture on marriage,
It must be a talented man!

P.S. -- I have found, on reflection,
One fault in my friend, -- entre nous;
Without it, he'd just be perfection; --
Poor fellow, he has not a sou!
And so, when he comes in September
To shoot with my uncle, Sir Dan,
I've promised mamma to remember
He's only a talented man!

Everyday Characters Iv - My Partner

'There is, perhaps, no subject of more universal interest in the whole range of natural knowledge, than that of the unceasing fluctuations which take place in the atmosphere in which we are immersed.'
-- British Almanack.

At Cheltenham, where one drinks one's fill
Of folly and cold water,
I danced last year my first quadrille
With old Sir Geoffrey's daughter.
Her cheek with summer's rose might vie,
When summer's rose is newest;
Her eyes were blue as autumn's sky,
When autumn's sky is bluest;
And well my heart might deem her one
Of life's most precious flowers,
For half her thoughts were of its sun,
And half were of its showers.
I spoke of Novels: -- 'Vivian Grey'
Was positively charming,
And 'Almacks' infinitely gay,
And 'Frankenstein' alarming;
I said 'De Vere' was chastely told,
Thought well of 'Herbert Lacy,'
Called Mr. Banim's sketches 'bold,'
And Lady Morgan's 'racy;'
I vowed that last new thing of Hook's
Was vastly entertaining:
And Laura said -- 'I doat on books,
Because it's always raining!'

I talked of Music's gorgeous fane;
I raved about Rossini,
Hoped Ronzi would come back again,
And criticised Pacini;
I wished the chorus-singers dumb,
The trumpets more pacific,
And eulogised Brocard's à plomb,
And voted Paul 'terrific!'
What cared she for Medea's pride,
Or Desdemona's sorrow?
'Alas!' my beauteous listener sighed,
'We must have rain to-morrow!'

I told her tales of other lands;
Of ever-boiling fountains,
Of poisonous lakes and barren sands,
Vast forests, trackless mountains:
I painted bright Italian skies,
I lauded Persian roses,
Coined similes for Spanish eyes,
And jests for Indian noses:
I laughed at Lisbon's love of mass,
Vienna's dread of treason:
And Laura asked me -- where the glass
Stood, at Madrid, last season.

I broached whate'er had gone its rounds,
The week before, of scandal;
What made Sir Luke lay down his hounds,
And Jane take up her Handel;
Why Julia walked upon the heath,
With the pale moon above her;
Where Flora lost her false front teeth,
And Anne her falser lover;
How Lord de B. and Mrs. L.
Had crossed the sea together:
My shuddering partner cried 'O Ciel!
How could they, -- in such weather?'

Was she a Blue? -- I put my trust
In strata, petals, gases;
A boudoir-pedant? I discussed
The toga and the fasces:
A Cockney-Muse? I mouthed a deal
Of folly from Endymion;
A saint? I praised the pious zeal
Of Messrs. Way and Simeon;
A politician? -- it was vain
To quote the morning paper;
The horrid phantoms came again,
Rain, Hail, and Snow, and Vapour.

Flat Flattery was my only chance:
I acted deep devotion,
Found magic in her every glance,
Grace in her every motion;
I wasted all a stripling's lore,
Prayer, passion, folly, feeling;
And wildly looked upon the floor,
And wildly on the ceiling.
I envied gloves upon her arm
And shawls upon her shoulder;
And, when my worship was most warm, --
She -- 'never found it colder.'

I don't object to wealth or land;
And she will have the giving
Of an extremely pretty hand,
Some thousands, and a living.
She makes silk purses, broiders stools,
Sings sweetly, dances finely,
Paints screens, subscribes to Sunday-schools,
And sits a horse divinely.
But to be linked for life to her! --
The desperate man who tried it
Might marry a Barometer
And hang himself beside it!

Everyday Characters Iii - The Belle Of The Ball Room

Years, years ago, ere yet my dreams
Had been of being wise and witty;
Ere I had done wth writing themes,
Or yawn'd o'er this infernal Chitty; --
Years, years ago, while all my joy
Was in my fowling-piece and filly;
In short, while I was yet a boy,
I fell in love with Laura Lily.

I saw her at the County Ball;
There, when the sounds of flute and fiddle
Gave signal sweet in that old hall
Of hands across and down the middle,
Hers was the subtlest spell by far
Of all that set young hearts romancing:
She was our queen, our rose, our star;
And then she danced -- oh, Heaven, her dancing!

Dark was her hair, her hand was white;
Her voice was exquisitely tender;
Her eyes were full of liquid light;
I never saw a waist so slender;
Her every look, her every smile,
Shot right and left a score of arrows;
I though 'twas Venus from her isle,
And wonder'd where she left her sparrows.

Through sunny May, through sultry June,
I loved her with a love eternal;
I spoke her praises to the moon,
I wrote them to the Sunday Journal.
My mother laugh'd; I soon found out
That ancient ladies have no feeling:
My father frown'd, but how should gout
See any happiness in kneeling?

She was the daughter of a dean,
Rich, fat, and rather apoplectic;
She had one brother just thriteen,
Whose color was extremely hectic;
Her grandmother, for many a year
Had fed the parish with her bounty;
Her second cousin was a peer,
And lord-lieutenant of the county.

But titles and the three-per-cents,
And mortgages, and great relations,
And India bonds, and tithes and rents,
Oh! what are they to love's sensations?
Black eyes, fair forehead, clustering locks, --
Such wealth, such honors, Cupid chooses;
He cares as little for the stocks,
As Baron Rothschild for the Muses.

She sketched; the vale, the wood, the beach,
Grew lovelier from her pencil's shading;
She botanized; I envied each
Young blossom in her boudoir fading;
She warbled Händel; it was grand, --
She made the Catalina jealous;
She touch'd the organ; I could stand
For hours and hours to blow the bellows.

She kept an album, too, at home,
Well fill'd with all an album's glories;
Paintings of butterfiles, and Rome,
Patterns for trimming, Persian stories,
Soft songs to Julia's cockatoo,
Fierce odes to Famine and to Slaughter;
And autographs of Prince Lèboo,
And recipes for elder-water.

And she was flatter'd, worshipp'd, bored;
Her steps were watch'd, her dress was noted;
Her poodle-dog was quite adored,
Her saying were extremely quoted.
She laugh'd, and every heart was glad,
As if the taxes were abolish'd;
She frown'd, and every look was sad,
As if the Opera were demolished.

She smil'd on many just for fun, --
I knew that there was nothing in it;
I was the first, the only one
Her heart had thought of for a minute.
I knew it, for she told me so,
In phrase which was divinely moulded;
She wrote a charming hand, and oh,
How sweetly all her notes were folded!

Our love was like most other loves, ---
A little glow, a little shiver,
A rosebud and a pair of gloves,
And 'Fly Not Yet,' upon the river;
Some jealousy of some one's heir,
Some hopes of dying broken-hearted;
A miniature, a lock of hair,
The usual vows -- and then we parted.

We parted -- months and years roll'd by;
We met again four summers after;
Our parting was all sob and sigh --
Our meeting was all mirth and laughter;
For in my heart's most secret cell,
There had been many other lodgers;
And she was not the ball-room's belle,
But only -- Mrs. Something Rogers.