Exquisite Miss Millionaire!
Hear a lover's genuine prayer:
Let the world adore your charms,
Swan-like neck, or snowy arms,
Rosy smile, or dazzling glance,
Making all our bosoms dance;
For your purse alone I care,
Exquisite Miss Millionaire!
Ringlets blackest of the black,
Ivory shoulders, Grecian back,
Tresses so divinely twined,
That we long to be the wind,
Waiting till the lady's face
Turns, to give the _coup de grace_.
All those spells to _me_ are air.
Truth is truth, Miss Millionaire.
Let them talk of finger-tips,
Pearly teeth, or coral lips,
Cheeks the morning rose that mock,
_Still_ there _is_ a charm in Stock!
Solid mortgage, five per cent,
Freehold with "improving" rent,
Russia bond, and railroad share,
Steal _my_ soul, Miss Millionaire.
Let your rhymers (all are crackt)
Rave of cloud or cataract;
On the Rhine, or Rhone, or Arve,
Let romancers stroll and starve.
Cupid loves a gilded cage,
(Let _me_ choose your equipage,)
Passion pants for Portman Square,
(Be but mine,) Miss Millionaire.
There you'll lead a London life,
More a goddess than a wife;
Fifty thousand pounds a-year
Making our expenses clear;
Giving, once a-week, a _fete_,
Simply to display our plate.
Never earth saw such a pair,
Exquisite Miss Millionaire!
But a steeple starts up from its green thickets; not one of the hideous
objects which the architects of our district churches perpetrate, to
puzzle the passer-by as to the purpose of its being,--whether a brewer's
chimney, or a shot-tower,--a perch for city pigeons, or a standing
burlesque on the builders of the nineteenth age of the fine arts in
England. This steeple is an old grey turret, ivy-mantled, modest, and
with that look of venerable age which instinctively makes us feel, that
it has witnessed memorable things in its time.
And it _has_ witnessed them. On the slope of the hill above this church
once waved the banners of a king, and the opposing banners of his
nobles: the one receiving the lesson, that kings have duties as well as
their subjects; and the others enforcing the lesson by the sight of
lines and columns of the stout bowmen and billmen of the Norman
chivalry.--On this spot, just this day six hundred and thirty years ago,
was held the grand conference between John and the Barons.
Further inland, but rising on the view, is Swainscomb, the hill on which
the Danish armies encamped, in their pirate rovings of the British seas,
and their invasions of the Thames.
What a contrast between the green landscape of this moment, and the camp
of Sweno. All before me was the luxury of cultivation, the yellowing
crop, the grazing cattle, the cottage smoke curling slowly upward on the
back-ground of noble beech, ash, and sycamore. On the summit, the sun
gleamed on a rectory house, half buried in roses, where the most learned
of our Orientalists perused the Koran in the peace of a Mahometan
paradise, and doubtless saw, on the dancing waters of the mighty river
at his feet, perpetual visions of houris.
Yet those pastures once echoed with the barbarian cries of the Cimbric
warriors; tents of seal-skin and white bear fur covered the hill; the
smokes of savage feasting and Scandinavian sacrifice clouded the skies;
and on the summit, surrounded by iron guards and spectral-looking
priests, stood the magic standard of the north, the image of the Raven,
which flapped its wings on the coming of battle, and gave the oracular
cry of victory.
But, what sounds of harmony sweep along the water! I see a range of
showy figures on the shore; it is a whole brass band, seducing us, in
the style of the syrens of old, to bring our ship to an anchor, and
hazard the enchantments of the most delicious of tea-gardens.--We are
within a hundred yards of the pier of Rosherville.
Within five minutes, we might be roaming through this paradise of the
Thames, climbing rustic slopes carpeted with flowers, or gazing at a
menagerie, where the monkeys bound, chatter, and take apples out of your
hand; or sipping coffee of the most fragrant growth, or dancing the
polka under alcoves of painted canvass, large enough to manoeuvre a
brigade of the Horse-guards. By day the scene is romantic, but by night
it is magical. By day the stranger roams through labyrinths of exotic
vegetation, but by night he is enchanted with invisible music, dazzled
with fireworks, and goes to his pillow to dream of the Arabian Nights.
Honour to the name of Jeremiah Rosher, the discoverer of the
"capabilities" of this Garden of the Hesperides. He found it a lime
quarry, and made it a bower of Armida. If, as the great moralist said,
"the man who makes two blades of grass grow where but one grew before,
is a benefactor to mankind," what honours should be paid to the genius,
which substituted human beings for lime-burners, and made the elite of
the east end of the mighty metropolis dance by thousands, where nothing
but the top of a thistle ever danced before. There have been more "first
affections" awakened in the rambles through the shades of Rosherville
than in fifty Almacks, and five hundred times more matches in
consequence, than ever took refuge in Gretna; and all this--for a
shilling!
As we neared the pier, I observed a small but elegant yacht, lying to;
with several groups of dark-featured and cloak-covered men listening,
with all the eagerness of foreign gesture, to the brazen harmony. My
Italian _compagnon de voyage_, instantly bounded from his seat, ran to
the ship's side, and held a rapid dialogue with the crew of the little
vessel. They were just from Rome, and were bringing over the newly
appointed Archbishop from the Vatican! The novelty of the voyage did not
seem to agree with the pleasurable faculties of those sons of "Bella
Italia," for nothing could be conceived more deplorable than their
physiognomies.
The scene reminded me of one which I had witnessed at Naples, on the
arrival of the first steam-boat from Rome, conveying the Cardinal Legate
to the Court of his Majesty of the Two Sicilies.
I disdain all the formalities of poetry. Let others prepare their
parchment-bound portfolios, throw their visages into the _penseroso_,
fling their curls back from their brows, unbutton their shirt-collars,
and, thus Byronised, begin. To _me_ all times and places are the
same.--The inspiration rushes on me, and I pour out my "unpremeditated
song" in the original rapture of Bardism!