CCLXXVII.

The Lark! she had given all Leipzig’s flocks
For a Vauxhall tune in a musical box;
  And as for the birds in the thicket,
Thrush or ousel in leafy niche,
The linnet or finch, she was far too rich
To care for a Morning Concert, to which
  She was welcome without any ticket.

CCLXXVIII.

Gold, still gold, her standard of old,
All pastoral joys were tried by gold,
  Or by fancies golden and crural—­
Till ere she had pass’d one week unblest,
As her agricultural Uncle’s guest,
Her mind was made up, and fully imprest,
  That felicity could not be rural!

CCLXXIX.

And the Count?—­to the snow-white lambs at play,
And all the scents and the sights of May,
  And the birds that warbled their passion,
His ears and dark eyes, and decided nose,
Were as deaf and as blind and as dull as those
That overlook the Bouquet de Rose,
    The Huile Antique,
    The Parfum Unique,
  In a Barber’s Temple of Fashion.

CCLXXX.

To tell, indeed, the true extent
Of his rural bias, so far it went
  As to covet estates in ring fences—­
And for rural lore he had learn’d in town
That the country was green, turn’d up with brown,
And garnish’d with trees that a man might cut down
  Instead of his own expenses.

CCLXXXI.

And yet had that fault been his only one,
The Pair might have had few quarrels or none,
  For their tastes thus far were in common;
But faults he had that a haughty bride
With a Golden Leg could hardly abide—­
Faults that would even have roused the pride
  Of a far less metalsome woman!

CCLXXXII.

It was early days indeed for a wife,
In the very spring of her married life,
  To be chill’d by its wintry weather—­
But instead of sitting as Love-Birds do,
On Hymen’s turtles that bill and coo—­
Enjoying their “moon and honey for two,”
  They were scarcely seen together!

CCLXXXIII.

In vain she sat with her Precious Leg
A little exposed, a la Kilmansegg,
  And roll’d her eyes in their sockets! 
He left her in spite of her tender regards,
And those loving murmurs described by bards,
For the rattling of dice and the shuffling of cards,
  And the poking of balls into pockets!

CCLXXXIV.

Moreover he loved the deepest stake
And the heaviest bets the players would make;
  And he drank—­the reverse of sparely,—­
And he used strange curses that made her fret;
And when he play’d with herself at piquet,
    She found, to her cost,
    For she always lost,
  That the Count did not count quite fairly.