The Humourous Poetry of the English Language

273
If, when of age, every man in the realm
Had a voice like old Lais, and chose to make use of it!
No--never was known in this riotous sphere
Such a breach of the peace as their singing, my dear;
So bad, too, you'd swear that the god of both arts,
Of Music and Physic, had taken a frolic
For setting a loud fit of asthma in parts,
And composing a fine rumbling base to a cholic!
But, the dancing--ah parlez moi, Dolly, des ca--
There, indeed, is a treat that charms all but Papa.
Such beauty--such grace--oh ye sylphs of romance!
Fly, fly to Titania, and ask her if SHE has
One light-footed nymph in her train, that can dance
Like divine Bigottini and sweet Fanny Bias!
Fanny Bias in Flora--dear creature!--you'd swear,
When her delicate feet in the dance twinkle round,
That her steps are of light, that her home is the air,
And she only par complaisance touches the ground.
And when Bigottini in Psyche dishevels
Her black flowing hair, and by demons is driven,
Oh! who does not envy those rude little devils,
That hold her, and hug her, and keep her from heaven?
Then, the music--so softly its cadences die,
So divinely--oh, Dolly! between you and I,
It's as well for my peace that there's nobody nigh
To make love to me then--YOU'VE a soul, and can judge
What a crisis 't would be for your friend Biddy Fudge!
The next place (which Bobby has near lost his heart in),
They call it the Play-house--I think--of Saint Martin:
Quite charming--and VERY religious--what folly
To say that the French are not pious, dear Dolly,
When here one beholds, so correctly and rightly,
The Testament turn'd into melo-drames nightly
And, doubtless, so fond they're of scriptural facts,
They will soon get the Pentateuch up in five acts.
Here Daniel, in pantomime, bids bold defiance
To Nebuchadnezzar and all his stuff'd lions,
While pretty young Israelites dance round the Prophet,
In very thin clothing, and BUT little of it;--