I execrate the mob, the squeeze,
      The rough refreshment-scramble: 
    The dancers, keeping time with knees
      That knock as down they amble;
    Between two lines of bankers’ clerks,
      Stared at by two of loobies—­
    All mighty fine for city sparks,
      But all and each one boobies:—­

    Boobies with heads like poodle-dogs,
      With curls like clew-lines dangling;
    With limbs like galvanizing frogs,
      And necks stiff-starched and strangling;
    With pigeon-breasts and pigeon-wings,
      And waists like wasps and spiders;
    With whiskers like Macready’s kings’,
      Mustachios like El Hyder’s.

    Miss Jones, the Moorfields milliner,
      With Toilinet, the draper,
    May waltz—­for none are willinger
      To cut cloth or a caper.—­
    Miss Moses of the Minories,
      With Mr. Wicks of Wapping,
    May love such light tracasseries,
      Such shuffle shoe and hopping: 

    Miss Hicks, the belle of Holywell,
      And pride of Norton Falgate,
    In waltzing may the world excel,
      Except Miss Hicks of Aldgate. 
    Well, let them—­’tis their nature—­twirl,
      And Smiths adore their twirlings,
    Which kill with envy every girl
      That fingers lace at Urling’s,

    I laugh while I lament to see
      A fellow, made to measure
    ’Gainst grenadiers of six feet three,
      “Die down the dance” with pleasure. 
    I laugh to see a man with thews
      His way through Misses picking,
    Like pig with tender pettitoes,
      Or chicken-hearted chicken;

    A tom-cat shod with walnut-shells,
      A pony race in pattens,
    A wagon-horse tricked out with bells,
      A sow in silks and satins,
    A butcher’s hair en papillote,
      And lounging Piccadilly,
    A clown in an embroidered coat,
      Are not more gauche and silly.

    Let atoms take their dusty dance,
      But men are not corpuscles: 
    An Englishman’s not made in France,
      Nor wire and buckram muscles. 
    The manly leap, the breathing race,
      The wrestle, or old cricket,
    Give to the limbs a native grace—­
      So, here’s for double-wicket.

    Leave dancing to the women, Men—­
      In them it is becoming;—­
    I never tire to see them, when
      Joe Hart his fiddle’s strumming,
    Or Colinet and mild Musard
      Have set their hearts quadrilling;—­
    Then be each nymph a gay Brocard,
      And every woman killing.

    I love to see the pretty dears
      Go lightly caracolling,
    And drinking love at eyes and ears,
      With every look their soul in! 
    I like to watch the swan-like grace
      They show in minuetting. 
    It hits one’s bosom’s tenderest place,
      To see them pirouetting.