With these and more such female groups,
Were mixt no less fantastic troops
Of male exhibitors--all willing
To look even more than usual killing;--
Beau tyrants, smock-faced braggadocios,
And brigands, charmingly ferocious:--
M.P.'s turned Turks, good Moslems then,
Who, last night, voted for the Greeks;
And Friars, stanch No-Popery men,
In close confab with Whig Caciques.
But where is she--the nymph whom late
We left before her glass delaying
Like Eve, when by the lake she sate,
In the clear wave her charms surveying,
And saw in that first glassy mirror
The first fair face that lured to error.
"Where is she," ask'st thou?--watch all looks
As centring to one point they bear,
Like sun-flowers by the sides of brooks,
Turned to the sun--and she is there.
Even in disguise, oh never doubt
By her own light you'd track her out:
As when the moon, close shawled in fog,
Steals as she thinks, thro' heaven _incog_.,
Tho' hid herself, some sidelong ray
At every step, detects her way.
But not in dark disguise to-night
Hath our young heroine veiled her light;--
For see, she walks the earth, Love's own.
His wedded bride, by _holiest_ vow
Pledged in Olympus, and made known
To mortals by the type which now
Hangs glittering on her snowy brow,
That butterfly, mysterious trinket,
Which means the Soul (tho' few would think it),
And sparkling thus on brow so white,
Tells us we've Psyche here tonight!
But hark! some song hath caught her ears--
And, lo, how pleased, as tho' she'd ne'er
Heard the Grand Opera of the Spheres,
Her goddess-ship approves the air;
And to a mere terrestrial strain,
Inspired by naught but pink champagne,
Her butterfly as gayly nods
As tho' she sate with all her train
At some great Concert of the Gods,
With Phoebus, leader--Jove, director,
And half the audience drunk with nectar.
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