| |
| SEE, see, bluff winter quits the town, | |
| And congees with her surly frown: | |
| In her train the beldame carries | |
| All sweet fashion’s gay vagaries; | |
| Her cork-soled shoes, and bonnet rough, | 5 |
| Her camel shawl, and bearskin muff, | |
| Her beaver gloves and fleecy dress, | |
| Red comforter and silk pelisse; | |
| And what is worse, the beldame ’s stole | |
| Of all our bliss the very soul, | 10 |
| Has stole the concert, play, and ball; | |
| And what is still the worst of all, | |
| Has Cooper stole, and with him fled, | |
| And left us ****** in his stead. | |
| See the town-bred Spring advancing, | 15 |
| Friend to grass, and foe to dancing! | |
| See adorn her lovely tresses | |
| Cabbage sprouts and water cresses! | |
| While for plume, the hoyden lass | |
| Sports a bunch of sparrow-grass. | 20 |
| See, beneath her market wreath, | |
| She smiles her dandelion teeth; | |
| Whilst with voice as sweet, or sweeter, | |
| Than Billings’ strains or Sternhold’s metre, | |
| With voice which music cannot ape her, | 25 |
| Like nightingale or Mrs Draper, | |
| She cheers her pannier’d mare and screams | |
| Her strawberries and fresh string-beans: | |
| Or, whilst her one wheel’d chariot rattles, | |
| She bawls her epicurean chattels; | 30 |
| Her shelly stores from old Cape Cod, | |
| Her mackerel, lobsters, and tom-cod: | |
| Or, in her a awning stalls displays, | |
| Her tempting lures to hungry gaze; | |
| Her luscious stores of fish, fowl, flesh, | 35 |
| Her salmon smoked and salmon fresh; | |
| Cod’s tongues and sounds, and smelt, and eel, | |
| Calves’ feet and head, and pluck, and veal— | |
| Far richer flowers than rural spring | |
| From all her scented hoards can bring. | 40 |
| For can the rose’s gayest dye | |
| With salmon soused in beauty vie? | |
| Or can the rose’s sweetest smell | |
| Vie with a fresh caught mackerel? | |
| Her rustic coz let others sing, | 45 |
| But let me taste the town-bred Spring. | |
| Close by her side see ****** smile, | |
| That critic in dumb fish and oil, | |
| Who thinks there ’s heaven in good dinners, | |
| And hell is fill’d with hungry sinners. | 50 |
| Close by her side the glutton stands, | |
| And takes his snuff, and rubs his hands, | |
| With critic nose assays her trash, | |
| And licks his lips and pays the cash. | |
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