Year by year do Beauty's daughters, In the sweetest gloves and shawls, Troop to taste the Chattenham waters, And adorn the Chattenham balls.
‘ Nulla non donanda lauru’ Is that city: you could not, Placing England's map before you, Light on a more favoured spot.
If no clear translucent river Winds‘ neath willow-shaded paths, “Children and adults” may shiver All day in “Chalybeate baths:”
If “the inimitable Fechter” Never brings the gallery down, Constantly “the Great Protector” There “rejects the British crown:”
And on every side the painter Looks on wooded vale and plain And on fair hills, faint and fainter Outlined as they near the main.
There I met with him, my chosen Friend — the‘ long’ but not‘ stern swell,’ Faultless in his hats and hosen, Whom the Johnian lawns know well: -
Oh my comrade, ever valued! Still I see your festive face; Hear you humming of “the gal you'd Left behind” in massive bass:
See you sit with that composure On the eeliest of hacks, That the novice would suppose your Manly limbs encased in wax:
Or anon,— when evening lent her Tranquil light to hill and vale, - Urge, towards the table's centre, With unerring hand, the squail.
Ah delectablest of summers! How my heart — that “muffled drum” Which ignores the aid of drummers - Beats, as back thy memories come!
Oh, among the dancers peerless, Fleet of foot, and soft of eye! Need I say to you that cheerless Must my days be till I die?
At my side she mashed the fragrant Strawberry; lashes soft as silk Drooped o'er saddened eyes, when vagrant Gnats sought watery graves in milk:
Then we danced, we walked together; Talked — no doubt on trivial topics; Such as Blondin, or the weather, Which “recalled us to the tropics.”
But — oh! in the deuxtemps peerless, Fleet of foot, and soft of eye! - Once more I repeat, that cheerless Shall my days be till I die.
And the lean and hungry raven, As he picks my bones, will start To observe‘ M. N.’ engraven Neatly on my blighted heart.
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