But this won’t do, save by and by; and he
Who, like Don Juan, takes an active share,
Must steer with care through all that glittering sea
Of gems and plumes and pearls and silks, to where
He deems it is his proper place to be;
Dissolving in the waltz to some soft air,
Or proudlier prancing with mercurial skill,
Where Science marshals forth her own quadrille.
LXXI
Or, if he dance not, but hath higher views
Upon an heiress or his neighbour’s bride,
Let him take care that that which he pursues
Is not at once too palpably descried:
Full many an eager gentleman oft rues
His haste; Impatience is a blundering guide
Amongst a people famous for reflection,
Who like to play the fool with circumspection.
LXXII
But, if you can contrive, get next at supper;
Or, if forestalled, get opposite and ogle:—
Oh, ye ambrosial moments! always upper
In mind, a sort of sentimental bogle,913
Which sits for ever upon Memory’s crupper,
The ghost of vanished pleasures once in vogue! Ill
Can tender souls relate the rise and fall
Of hopes and fears which shake a single ball.
LXXIII
But these precautionary hints can touch
Only the common run, who must pursue,
And watch and ward; whose plans a word too much
Or little overturns; and not the few
Or many (for the number’s sometimes such)
Whom a good mien, especially if new,
Or fame—or name—for Wit, War, Sense, or Nonsense,
Permits whate’er they please—or did not long since.
LXXIV
Our Hero—as a hero—young and handsome,
Noble, rich, celebrated, and a stranger,
Like other slaves of course must pay his ransom,
Before he can escape from so much danger
As will environ a conspicuous man. Some
Talk about poetry, and “rack and manger,”
And ugliness, disease, as toil and trouble;—
I wish they knew the life of a young noble.
LXXV
They are young, but know not Youth—it is anticipated;
Handsome but wasted, rich without a sou;914
Their vigour in a thousand arms is dissipated;
Their cash comes from, their wealth goes to a Jew;
Both senates see their nightly votes participated
Between the Tyrant’s and the Tribunes’ crew;
And having voted, dined, drunk, gamed, and whored,
The family vault receives another Lord.
LXXVI
“Where is the World?” cries Young, at eighty915—“Where
The World in which a man was born?” Alas!
Where is the world of eight years past? ’Twas there—
I look for it—’tis gone, a globe of glass!
Cracked, shivered, vanished, scarcely gazed on, ere916
A silent change dissolves the glittering mass.
Statesmen, Chiefs, Orators, Queens, Patriots, Kings,
And Dandies—all are gone on the Wind’s wings.
LXXVII
Where is Napoleon the Grand? God knows!
Where little Castlereagh? The devil can tell!
Where Grattan, Curran, Sheridan—all those
Who bound the Bar or Senate in their spell?
Where is the unhappy Queen, with all her woes?
And where the Daughter, whom the Isles loved well?
Where are those martyred saints the Five per Cents?917918
And where—oh, where the devil are the Rents?
LXXVIII
Where’s Brummell? Dished. Where’s Long Pole Wellesley?919 Diddled.
Where’s Whitbread? Romilly? Where’s George the Third?
Where is his will?920 (That’s not so soon unriddled.)
And where is “Fum” the Fourth, our “royal bird?”921
Gone down, it seems, to Scotland to be fiddled
Unto by Sawney’s violin, we have heard:
“Caw me, caw thee”—for six months hath been hatching
This scene of royal itch and loyal scratching.
LXXIX
Where is Lord This? And where my Lady That?
The Honourable Mistresses and Misses?
Some laid aside like an old Opera hat,
Married, unmarried, and remarried: (this is
An evolution oft performed of late).
Where are the Dublin shouts—and London hisses?
Where are the Grenvilles? Turned as usual. Where
My friends the Whigs? Exactly where they were.
LXXX
Where are the Lady Carolines and Franceses?922
Divorced or doing thereanent. Ye annals
So brilliant, where the list of routs and dances is—
Thou Morning Post, sole record of the panels
Broken in carriages, and all the fantasies
Of fashion—say what streams now fill those channels?
Some die, some fly, some languish on the Continent,
Because the times have hardly left them one tenant.
LXXXI
Some who once set their caps at cautious dukes,923
Have taken up at length with younger brothers:
Some heiresses have bit at sharpers’ hooks:
Some maids have been made wives, some merely mothers:
Others have lost their fresh and fairy looks:
In short, the list of alterations bothers.
There’s little strange in this, but something strange is
The unusual quickness of these common changes.
LXXXII
Talk not of seventy years as age; in seven
I have seen more changes, down from monarchs to
The humblest individuals under Heaven,
Than might suffice a moderate century through.
I knew that nought was lasting, but now even
Change grows too changeable, without being new:
Nought’s permanent among the human race,
Except the Whigs not getting into place.
LXXXIII
I have seen Napoleon, who seemed quite a Jupiter,
Shrink to a Saturn. I have seen a Duke
(No matter which) turn politician stupider,
If that can well be, than his wooden look.
But it is time that I should hoist my “blue Peter,”
And sail for a new theme:—I have seen—and shook
To see it—the King hissed, and then caressed;
But don’t pretend to settle which was best.
LXXXIV
I have seen the Landholders without a rap—
I have seen Joanna Southcote—I have seen
The House of Commons turned to a tax-trap—
I have seen that sad affair of the late Queen—
I have seen crowns worn instead of a fool’s cap—
I have seen a Congress924 doing all that’s mean—
I have seen some nations, like o’erloaded asses,
Kick off their burdens—meaning the high classes.
LXXXV
I have seen small poets, and great prosers, and
Interminable—not eternal—speakers—
I have seen the funds at war with house and land—
I have seen the country gentlemen turn squeakers—
I have seen the people ridden o’er like sand
By slaves on horseback—I have seen malt liquors
Exchanged for “thin potations”
