Directions For Doing Poetry.[127]

IN THE SIMPLE STYLE OF SOUTHEY, WORDSWORTH, AND OTHER MODERN METRE MONGERS.

Supposing you would sing About love in the Spring, Something like this will be just the thing. Tell the reader to behold The gay Tints of the cloud-dappled morn! Then streak the azure with gems set in gold, And bring into view Some Tyrian hue, Mix’d with indigo blue. Then the meads must be spangled, And glittering grove With OCEANS of dew! Whew!!

But now you must mind That rhymes you must find For lines left behind, You therefore must rove, Say On any day About the fag end of May, And bid lilacs adorn Your beautiful morn; And the thickets must be tangled For the sake of your spangled.

Now having found Yourself on firm ground, You may roam along the edges Of hawthorn hedges; Then bid beds of roses And pretty pink posies Ravish our eyes and captivate our noses!!! Interweave, if you will, The hyacinth and daffodil, With now and then a big weed Of purslain and of pig weed, And add fragrant crops Of potato tops, And scatter, here and thereabout, As many hops As you may please to care about; And, between whiles, Say That Nature smiles, In her new holiday Dress;-- Nevertheless, These beauties so rare Can never compare With the dear little dove With whom you’re in love.

Next glance a quick eye To the flame cinctur’d, multihu’d arch in the sky;-- In our vernacular idiom call’d a rainbow, Which perhaps the unpoetic reader would fain know. Then positively declare, That Amanda the fair, Who really beats the Dutch, Exceeds as much All such As does a fine lilac silk gown The dirtiest grogram in town. Then bid your muse higher fly, And say your queen of lasses Each country wench surpasses, Yea, far more excels Your Moggies and Nells, Than doth the noontide blaze the scintillating fire fly.

HORACE SURPASSED.

How funny ’tis, when pretty lads and lasses Meet altogether, just to have a caper, And the black fiddler plays you such a tune as Sets you a frisking.

High bucks and ladies, standing in a row all, Make finer show than troops of continentals. Balance and foot it, rigadoon and chasse, Brimful of rapture.

Thus poets tell us how one Mister Orpheus Led a rude forest to a contra-dance, and Play’d the brisk tune of Yankee Doodle on a New Holland fiddle.

Spruce our gallants are, essenced with pomatum, Heads powder’d white as Killington-Peak snowstorm; Ladies, how brilliant, fascinating creatures, All silk and muslin!

But now behold a sad reverse of fortune, Life’s brightest scenes are checker’d with disaster, Clumsy Charles Clumpfoot treads on Tabby’s gown, and Tears all the tail off!

Stop, stop the fiddler, all away this racket-- Hartshorn and water! See the ladies fainting, Paler than primrose, fluttering about like Pigeons affrighted!

Not such the turmoil, when the sturdy farmer Sees turbid whirlwinds beat his oats and rye down, And the rude hail-stones, big as pistol-bullets, Dash in his windows!

Willy Wagnimble dancing with Flirtilla, Almost as light as air-balloon inflated, Rigadoons round her, ’till the lady’s heart is Forced to surrender.

Benny Bamboozle cuts the drollest capers, Just like a camel, or a hippopot’mus, Jolly Jack Jumble makes as big a rout as Forty Dutch horses!

See Angelina lead the mazy dance down, Never did fairy trip it so fantastic; How my heart flutters, while my tongue pronounces Sweet little seraph!

Such are the joys, that flow from contra-dancing, Pure as the primal happiness of Eden, Love, mirth, and music, kindle in accordance Raptures extatic.