’Twas June, and many a gossip wench,
Child-freighted, trod the central Mall;
I gain’d a white unpeopled bench,
And gazed upon the long canal.
Beside me soon, in motley talk,
Boys, nursemaids sat, a varying race;
At length two females cross’d the walk,
And occupied the vacant space.
In years they seem’d some forty-four,
Of dwarfish stature, vulgar mien;
A bonnet of black silk each wore,
And each a gown of bombasin;
And, while in loud and careless tones
They dwelt upon their own concerns,
Ere long I learn’d that Mrs. Jones
Was one, and one was Mrs. Burns.
They talk’d of little Jane and John,
And hoped they’d come before ’twas dark;
Then wonder’d why with pattens on
One might not walk across the park:
They call’d it far to Camden-town,
Yet hoped to reach it by and by;
And thought it strange, since flour was down,
That bread should still continue high.
They said last Monday’s heavy gales
Had done a monstrous deal of ill;
Then tried to count the iron rails
That wound up Constitution-hill;
This larum sedulous to shun,
I don’d my gloves, to march away,
When, as I gazed upon the one,
“Good heavens!” I cried, “’tis Nancy Gray.”
’Twas Nancy, whom I led along
The whiten’d and elastic floor,
Amid mirth’s merry dancing throng,
Just two and twenty years before.
Though sadly alter’d, I knew her,
While she, ’twas obvious, knew me not;
But mildly said, “Good evening, sir,”
And with her comrade left the spot.
“Is this,” I cried, in grief profound,
“The fair with whom, eclipsing all,
I traversed Ranelagh’s bright round,
Or trod the mazes of Vauxhall?
And is this all that Time can do?
Has Nature nothing else in store;
Is this of lovely twenty-two,
All that remains at forty-four?
“Could _I_ to such a helpmate cling?
Were such a wedded dowdy mine,
On yonder lamp-post would I swing,
Or plunge in yonder Serpentine!”
I left the park with eyes askance,
But, ere I enter’d Cleveland-row,
Rude Reason thus threw in her lance,
And dealt self-love a mortal blow.
“Time, at whose touch all mortals bow,
From either sex his prey secures,
His scythe, while wounding Nancy’s brow,
Can scarce have smoothly swept o’er yours;
By her you plainly were not known;
Then, while you mourn the alter’d hue
Of Nancy’s face, suspect your own
May be a _little_ alter’d too.”
_New Monthly Magazine._
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