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CCLXXII.

And what were joys of the pastoral kind
To a Bride–town-made–with a heart and a mind
With simplicity ever at battle?
A bride of an ostentatious race,
Who, thrown in the Golden Farmer’s place,
Would have trimm’d her shepherds with golden lace,
And gilt the horns of her cattle.

CCLXXIII.

She could not please the pigs with her whim,
And the sheep wouldn’t cast their eyes at a limb
For which she had been such a martyr:
The deer in the park, and the colts at grass,
And the cows unheeded let it pass;
And the ass on the common was such an ass,
That he wouldn’t have swopp’d
The thistle he cropp’d
For her Leg, including the Garter!

CCLXXIV.

She hated lanes and she hated fields–
She hated all that the country yields–
And barely knew turnips from clover;
She hated walking in any shape,
And a country stile was an awkward scrape,
Without the bribe of a mob to gape
At the Leg in clambering over!

CCLXXV.

O blessed nature, “O rus! O rus!”
Who cannot sigh for the country thus,
Absorb’d in a wordly torpor–
Who does not yearn for its meadow-sweet breath,
Untainted by care, and crime, and death,
And to stand sometimes upon grass or heath–
That soul, spite of gold, is a pauper!

CCLXXVI.

But to hail the pearly advent of morn,
And relish the odor fresh from the thorn,
She was far too pamper’d a madam–
Or to joy in the daylight waxing strong,
While, after ages of sorrow and wrong,
The scorn of the proud, the misrule of the strong,
And all the woes that to man belong,
The Lark still carols the selfsame song
That he did to the uncurst Adam!

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!