To you, ye husbands of ten years whose brows Ache with the annual tributes of a spouse; To you of nine years less, who only bear The budding sprouts of those that you shall wear, With added ornaments around them roll’d Of native brass, or law-awarded gold:  To you, ye matrons, ever on the watch To mar a son’s, or make a daughter’s match; To you, ye children of—­whom chance accords—­ Always the ladies, and sometimes their lords; To you, ye single gentlemen, who seek Torments for life, or pleasures for a week; As Love or Hymen your endeavours guide, To gain your own, or snatch another’s bride;—­ To one and all the lovely stranger came, And every ball-room echoes with her name.

  Endearing Waltz! to thy more melting tune
  Bow Irish jig and ancient rigadoon. 
  Scotch reels, avaunt! and country dance forego
  Your future claims to each fantastic toe! 
  Waltz, Waltz alone, both legs and arms demands,
  Liberal of feet, and lavish of her hands;
  Hands which may freely range in public sight
  Where ne’er before—­but—­pray “put out the light”. 
  Methinks the glare of yonder chandelier
  Shines much too far, or I am much too near;
  And true, though strange, Waltz whispers this remark,
  “My slippery steps are safest in the dark!”
  But here the Muse with due decorum halts,
  And lends her longest petticoat to Waltz.

  Observant travellers of every time! 
  Ye quartos publish’d upon every clime! 
  Oh, say, shall dull Romaika’s heavy round,
  Fandango’s wriggle, or Bolero’s bound;
  Can Egypt’s Almas—­tantalizing group—­
  Columbia’s caperers to the warlike whoop—­
  Can aught from cold Kamschatka to Cape Horn
  With Waltz compare, or after Waltz be borne? 
  Ah, no! from Morier’s pages down to Galt’s,
  Each tourist pens a paragraph for “Waltz”.

  Shades of those belles whose reign began of yore,
  With George the Third’s—­and ended long before!—­
  Though in your daughters’ daughters yet you thrive,
  Burst from your lead, and be yourselves alive! 
  Back to the ball-room speed your spectred host;
  Fools’ Paradise is dull to that you lost. 
  No treacherous powder bids conjecture quake;
  No stiff-starch’d stays make meddling fingers ache
  (Transferr’d to those ambiguous things that ape
  Goats in their visage, women in their shape): 
  No damsel faints when rather closely press’d,
  But more caressing seems when most caress’d;
  Superfluous hartshorn and reviving salts;
  Both banished, by the sovereign cordial, “Waltz”.

  Seductive Waltz!—­though on thy native shore
  Even Werter’s self proclaim’d thee half a whore: 
  Werter—­to decent vice though much inclined,
  Yet warm, not wanton; dazzled, but not blind—­
  Though gentle Genlis, in her strife with Stael,
  Would even proscribe thee from a Paris ball;