Part 2 — FAREWELL TO A FASHIONABLE ACQUAINTANCE.
Reading edition
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BY S. G. GOODRICH.
———
There is a smile which beams with light,
When all around is flush and fair,
Yet turns to scorn when Sorrow’s night
Wraps its lorn victim in despair.
That smile is like the illusive ray
The false, fictitious diamond gives;
Reflecting back the beams of day;
In borrowed light it only lives.
That smile is like the rifled rose,
That on a syren’s breast doth shine;
Oh! who would weep to part with those
Whose smiles are such as this of thine!
And these are friends who call one “dear,”
When Fortune favors all one’s wishes;
Yet when the goddess changes—sneer,
And pick one’s character to pieces.
Poor moths that round the taper wheel—
Addled in light—in darkness fled—
Too poor to crush—too false to feel—
Beneath our scorn—to memory dead!
Yet they may teach a lesson stern—
In the deep caverns of the mind,
To build our castle home, and spurn
The heartless things we leave behind.
Unwept the false, unwept the fair—
To fashion, folly, falsehood, tied—
With truth and love, we now may share
The bliss that flattery denied.
——
Lady, farewell! no more we meet,
My cream, my strawberries, all are banished;
Thy flatteries too are fled, thy sweet,
Fond speeches with my ices vanished.
——
Forgive me if I mourn thee not,
For at a price I know thee willing;
Such souls as thine, fair dame, are bought,
Like cakes and custards, by the shilling.
’Tis thus with thee, ’tis thus with all,
That throng gay Fashion’s trickish mart;
Each has his price, and, great or small,
Cash is the measure of the heart.
Seest thou yon proud and peerless belle,
That saunters through the gay cotillion,
With eyes that speak of heaven? Well—
She’s just knocked down at half a million.
There is the purchaser—a poor,
Mean, craven thing—whose merit lies
In this, his father left him store
Of stocks; and he hath bought those eyes!
Yon maiden, whirling in the waltz—
A salamander that doth live
Unscathed in fire—hath too her faults,
But yet her price is—what you’ll give.
And this is Fashion’s magic ring
So envied, sought—where yet the heart,
Stript of its guises, is a thing
That makes poor, simple Virtue start.
So false within, without so fair.
’Twas here, sweet dame, that first I met thee,
’Tis meet that I should leave thee where
Thou art at home—and thus, forget thee!