You may ask, Dick, how comes it that I, a poor elf,
Wanting substance even more than your spiritual self,
Should thus generously lay my own claims on the shelf,
When, God knows! there ne'er was young gentleman yet
So much lackt an old spinster to rid him from debt,
Or had cogenter reasons than mine to assail her
With tender love-suit--at the suit of his tailor.
But thereby there hangs a soft secret, my friend,
Which thus to your reverend breast I commend:
Miss Fudge hath a niece--such a creature!--with eyes
Like those sparklers that peep out from summer-night skies
At astronomers-royal, and laugh with delight
To see elderly gentlemen spying all night.
While her figure--oh! bring all the gracefullest things
That are borne thro' the light air by feet or by wings,
Not a single new grace to that form could they teach,
Which combines in itself the perfection of each;
While, rapid or slow, as her fairy feet fall,
The mute music of symmetry modulates all.
Ne'er in short was there creature more formed to bewilder
A gay youth like me, who of castles aerial
(And _only_ of such) am, God help me! a builder;
Still peopling each mansion with lodgers ethereal,
And now, to this nymph of the seraph-like eye,
Letting out, as you see, my first floor next the sky.
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