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Lo! where the gaily-vestured throng,
Fair Learning’s train, are seen,
Wedged in close ranks her walls along,
And up her benches green!
Unfolded to their mental eye
Thy awful form, Sublimity,
The moral teacher shows;
Sublimity! of silence born,
And solitude, ’mid “caves forlorn,”
And dimly-vision’d woes,
Or steadfast worth that, inly great,
Mocks the malignity of fate.
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| MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. | 85 |
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Whisper’d Pleasure’s dulcet sound
Murmurs the crowded room around,
And Wisdom, borne on Fashion’s pinion,
Exulting hails her new dominion.
Oh! both on me your influence shed;
Dwell in my heart, and deck my head!
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Where’er a broader, browner shade
The shaggy bearer throws,
And with the ample feather’s aid,
O’er-canopies the nose;
Where’er, with smooth and silken pile,
Lingering in solemn pause awhile,
The crimson velvet glows;
From some high bench’s giddy brink,
With me, my friend begins to think,
As bolt upright we sit,
That dress, like dogs, should have its day,
That beavers are too hot for May,
And velvets quite unfit.
Then Taste, in maxims sweet, I draw
From her unerring lip—
“How light! how simple are the straw!
How delicate the chip!”
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Hush’d is the speaker’s powerful voice,
The audience melt away;
I fly to fix my final choice,
And bless the instructive day.
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The milliner officious pours
Of hats and caps her ready stores,
The unbought elegance of spring;
Some, wide, disclose the full round face,
Some, shadowy, lend a modest grace,
And stretch their sheltering wing.
Here clustering grapes appear to shed
Their luscious juices on the head,
And cheat the longing eye:
So round the Phrygian monarch hung
Fair fruits, that from his parched tongue
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| 86 | MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. |
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For ever seemed to fly.
Here early blooms the summer rose,
Here ribbons wreathe fantastic bows;
There plays gay plumage of a thousand dyes.—
Visions of beauty, spare my aching eyes!
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Ye cumbrous fashions, crowd not on my head!
Mine be the chip of purest white,
Swan-like, and as her feathers light
When on the still ware spread;
And let it wear the graceful dress
Of unadorned simpleness!
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Ah, frugal wish! Ah, pleasing thought!
Ah, hope indulged in vain!
Of modest fancy cheaply bought,
A stranger yet to Payne!
With undissembled grief I tell,
(For sorrow never comes too late,)
The simplest bonnet in Fall Mall
Is sold for one pound eight.
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To calculation’s sober view,
That searches every plan,
Who keep the old, or buy the new,
Shall end where they began.
Alike the shabby and the gay
Must meet the sun’s meridian ray,
The air—the dust—the damp:
This, shall the sudden shower despoil,
That, slow decay by gradual soil,
Those, envious boxes cramp.
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Who will, their squander’d gold may pay,
Who will, our taste deride;
We’ll scorn the fashion of the day
With philosophic pride.
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Methinks we thus, in accents low,
Might Sydney
Smith address:—
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| MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. | 87 |
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“Poor moralist! and what art thou,
Who never spoke of dress?
Thy mental hero never hung
Suspended on a tailor’s tongue,
In agonizing doubt!
Thy tale no fluttering female show’d,
Who languish’d for the newest mode,
Yet dares to live without!”
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