CCXCIII.

And lo! with the brightest gleam of all
The glowing sunbeam is seen to fall
  On an object as rare as spendid—­
The golden foot of the Golden Leg
Of the Countess—­once Miss Kilmansegg—­
  But there all sunshine is ended.

CCXCIV.

Her cheek is pale, and her eye is dim,
And downward cast, yet not at the limb,
  Once the centre of all speculation;
But downward dropping in comfort’s dearth,
As gloomy thoughts are drawn to the earth—­
Whence human sorrows derive their birth—­
  By a moral gravitation.

CCXCV.

Her golden hair is out of its braids,
And her sighs betray the gloomy shades
  That her evil planet revolves in—­
And tears are falling that catch a gleam
So bright as they drop in the sunny beam,
That tears of aqua regia they seem,
  The water that gold dissolves in;

CCXCVI.

Yet, not in filial grief were shed
  Those tears for a mother’s insanity;
Nor yet because her father was dead,
For the bowing Sir Jacob had bow’d his head
  To Death—­with his usual urbanity;
The waters that down her visage rill’d
Were drops of unrectified spirit distill’d
  From the limbeck of Pride and Vanity.

CCXCVII.

Tears that fell alone and unchecked,
Without relief, and without respect,
Like the fabled pearls that the pigs neglect,
  When pigs have that opportunity—­
And of all the griefs that mortals share,
The one that seems the hardest to bear
  Is the grief without community.

CCXCVIII.

How bless’d the heart that has a friend
A sympathising ear to lend
  To troubles too great to smother! 
For as ale and porter, when flat, are restored
Till a sparkling bubbling head they afford,
So sorrow is cheer’d by being pour’d
  From one vessel into another.

CCXCIX.

But a friend or gossip she had not one
To hear the vile deeds that the Count had done,
  How night after night he rambled;
And how she had learn’d by sad degrees
That he drank, and smoked, and worse than these,
  That he “swindled, intrigued, and gambled.”

CCC.

How he kiss’d the maids, and sparr’d with John;
And came to bed with his garments on;
  With other offences as heinous—­
And brought strange gentlemen home to dine
That he said were in the Fancy Line,
And they fancied spirits instead of wine,
  And call’d her lap-dog “Wenus.”

CCCI.