O YEZ! This is, that all may learn,
Whom it may happen to concern,
To any lady, not a wife,
Upon a lease, to last for life,
By auction will be let this day,
And entered on some time in May,
A vacant heart; not ornamented
On plans by Chesterfield invented,
A plain, old-fashioned habitation,
Substantial without decoration,
Large, and with room for friends to spare;
Well-situate, and in good repair.
Also the furniture; as sighs,
Hopes, fears, oaths, prayers, and some few-lies,
Odes, sonnets, elegies, and songs,
With all, that to the above belongs.
Also,-what some might have been glad,
Tho' in a separate lot, to have had,—
A good rich soil of hopeful nature,
Six measured acres (feet) of stature.
Likewise, another lot-an heap
Of tattered modesty, quite cheap.
These verses, with many similar advertisements in prose, were spoken at a private Masquerade, in the character of a Town-Cryer.
This with the rest would have been sold;
But that by several we were told,
If put up with the heart, the price
Of that it much might prejudice.
Note well; the estate, if managed ably,
May be improved considerably;
Love is our money, to be paid
Whenever entry shall be made;
And therefore have we fixed the day
For entering, in the month of May.
But if the buyer of the above,
Can on the spot pay ready love,
Hereby the owner makes profession,
She instantly shall have possession.
The highest bidder be the buyer,
You may know further of the Cryer,
EPIGRAM,
TO CERTAIN FASHIONABLES.
You who, on coach-box mounted, whirl along
With four in hand, and smack the sounding throng,
Who think to drive is wit, and sense, and grace,
What shall we call you? in what station place?
You're not, 'tis plain, true gentlemen-for those
Who bear that name to mean pursuits are foes;
You're not good coachmen-for each Whip that passes
Views with a sneer, and calls you clumsy asses.
So the hermaphodite, that thing uncommon,
Scorn'd by each sex, is neither man nor woman !
BY GEORGE FREDERIC BUSBY, ESQ.
BREATHE Soft, my lyre; in lowly-murmur'd strains
Recount my throbbing bosom's anxious fears;
Bid Hope's elysian whispers soothe my pains,
And tell Gonsalvo his Victoria hears:
And with what fond excess he loves her, tell;,
How brightly, chastely, burns the flame divine:
Let not that gentle heart from love rebel,
But all its thrilling pulses answer mine.
How oft by Guadalquivir's vine-bower'd shores,
When purple Vesper slept in western skies,
I watch'd the steps of her my soul adores,
Tears my oblation, and my incense sighs!
While every glance from those celestial eyes,
And every radiant charm that met my sight, Was cloth'd in such a soft, angelic, guise,
That love was mute and wrapt in dumb delight.
And sure the heart, that tenants that soft breast,
Must be as soft, as mild; and those dear eyes,
Whose azure lightnings murder'd all my rest,
The stars of love, will bid their vassal rise.
Those ruby lips, impress'd by Cupid's seal,
Shall breathe the amorous language of the heart,
And virgin blushes, virgin sighs, reveal
The melting joys love only can impart.
Then, folding in these blest, these rapturous, arms,
My soul's enchantress, and my bosom's queen,
That glowing paradise of heavenly charms
Shall fling its rich delight o'er every scene.
Whether to those inhospitable climes,
Where Nature sleeps in hyperborean chains, Or where his tropic throne Apollo climbs,
And pours his scorching fires o'er eastern plains,
I go-Delight shall wave his wings around me,
Victoria's eyes shall melt the yielding frost,
Victoria's breath dispense refreshment round me,
And all the rigours of the clime be lost.
Nature's vicissitudes were nought to me;
With thee, my amulet, my shield from harm,
My every thought should concentrate in thee,
And every hour reveal some secret charin.
Sleep, loveliest daughter of my native Spain;
Ethereal visions gild thy balmy rest!
And when Gonsalvo meets thy glance again,
Receive his vows, and make thy lover blest.
Breeze of the night, on silent pinion fleeting,
Fan thou the couch where virgin beauty slumbers; Still'd be my throbbing heart's tumultuous beating; And cease, my faithful lyre, thy plaintive numbers.
ON THE PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG LADY,
SEE, fairest among many fair,
Yon graceful Maid, with smiling air,
And cheek as bright as summer even
Warm from the dance she seems to spring;
And the light gales above her fling
Her silken scarf, in floating ring,
Like rainbow in th' Autumnal Heaven.
One snowy arm she lifts to bind
The dark curls sporting in the wind;
And one half raised, as if to fly,
With fairy foot keeps equal measure:
Joy sparkles in her radiant eye;
Her light form seems to bound on high;
And motion snatches grace from pleasure.
Such the fair form: the fairer mind
'Tis not in Painter's art to bind.
That form with ever-changing grace
Flits like the borealis race
In variable spell:
That mind, like planet star, we trace
Bright and unchangeable.
Its own pure circle fixed to run;
And Virtue the light-giving sun.
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