A BELLE AT A BALL.

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BY F. W. THOMAS, AUTHOR OF “HOWARD PINCKNEY,” ETC.

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Miss Merry vale is dressed with taste—

With taste she always dresses—

A zone is round her virgin waist,

And flowers in her tresses;

That full-blown fellow, in her curl,

Bobs with an everlasting twirl,

As, with an air like Juno’s, she

Nods to the goodly companie.

Prouder it looks than when on high

It flouted at a flaming sky;

For now, no more on thorny stem,

It graces beauty’s diadem.

Her neck is bare—her shoulders too,

And with the cold they had been blue,

But for the flakes of mealy hue—

The powder of the pearl—

Which, like the frost on frozen shore,

Or web of gossamer, was o’er

The fascinating girl.

Deepest the drift in hollow places.

Thus maids forsaken by the graces,

And thin with hope deferred—

(I only speak from what I’ve heard;

So little of the sex I’ve seen,

I hold each one a fairy quean—)

Appear in such a garb of flour,

And talk with such continuous power,

And try to look so dapper,

That one might think the miller’s maid

Had come, most naturally arrayed,

And bore away the clapper.

That powder is a great transgression

Against the rosy cheek;

It buries up the whole expression;

It makes the eye look weak,

Unnatural the tress;

And throws upon the brow a blight,

As though it had grown gray with fright

At single blessedness.

Pray who would such a woman toast?

Unless he meant to drink to one

Long, long since with the buried gone,

And now an awful ghost?

Which, like all ghosts that earthward rove,

Must horrify the hues of love.