Round all the confines of the yielded waist,
The strangest hand may wander undisplaced;
The lady's in return may grasp as much
As princely paunches offer to her touch.
Pleased round the chalky floor how well they trip,
One hand reposing on the royal hip;

The other to the shoulder no less royal

Ascending with affection truly loyal!

Thus front to front the partners move or stand,
The foot may rest, but none withdraw the hand;
And all in turn may follow in their rank,
The Earl of Asterisk-and Lady-Blank;
Sir-Such-a-one-with those of fashion's host,
For whose blest surnames-vide "

Morning Post" (Or if for that impartial print too late,

Search Doctors' Commons six months from my date) —

Thus all and each, in movement swift or slow,
The genial contact gently undergo;

Till some might marvel, with the modest Turk,
If" nothing follows all this palming work?" (1)
True, honest Mirza! — you may trust my rhyme
Something does follow at a fitter time;

The breast thus publicly resign'd to man,
In private may resist him-

if it can.

women's hearts are disposed of; they have nature's privilege to distribute them as absurdly as possible. But there are also some men with hearts so thoroughly bad, as to remind us of those phenomena often mentioned in natural history; viz. a mass of solid stone-only to be opened by forceand when divided, you discover a toad in the centre, lively, and with the reputation of being venomous.

(1) In Turkey a pertinent, here an impertinent and superfluous, question -literally put, as in the text, by a Persian to Morier, on seeing a waltz in Pera. Vide Morier's Travels.

O ye who loved our grandmothers of yore, Fitzpatrick, Sheridan, (1) and many more!

[will

And thou, my prince! whose sovereign taste and It is to love the lovely beldames still!

Thou ghost of Queensbury! whose judging sprite Satan may spare to peep a single night,

Pronounce

- if ever in your days of bliss Asmodeus struck so bright a stroke as this;

To teach the young ideas how to rise,

Flush in the cheek, and languish in the eyes;
Rush to the heart, and lighten through the frame,
With half-told wish and ill-dissembled flame
For prurient nature still will storm the breast
Who, tempted thus, can answer for the rest?

But ye

who never felt a single thought

For what our morals are to be, or ought;

Who wisely wish the charms you view to reap, Say- would you make those beauties quite so cheap?

(1) [I once heard Sheridan repeat, in a ball-room, some verses, which he had lately written on waltzing; and of which I remember the following

"With tranquil step, and timid, downcast glance,

Behold the well-pair'd couple now advance.

In such sweet posture our first parents moved,

While, hand in hand, through Eden's bowers they roved,

Ere yet the Devil, with promise fine and false,

Turn'd their poor heads, and taught them how to waltz.
One hand grasps hers, the other holds her hip:

This gentleman, whose name suits so aptly as a legal authority on the subject of waltzing, was, at the time these verses were written, well known in the dancing circles. - MOORE.]

Hot from the hands promiscuously applied,

Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side, Where were the rapture then to clasp the form From this lewd grasp and lawless contact warm? At once love's most endearing thought resign,

Το

press the hand so press'd by none but thine; To gaze upon that eye which never met

Another's ardent look without regret ;

Approach the lip which all, without restraint,
Come near enough—if not to touch—to taint;
If such thou lovest-love her then no more,
Or give like her-caresses to a score ;

Her mind with these is gone, and with it go
The little left behind it to bestow.

Voluptuous Waltz! and dare I thus blaspheme? Thy bard forgot thy praises were his theme. Terpsichore, forgive !-at every ball

My wife now waltzes

and my daughters shall; My son-(or stop-'tis needless to enquireThese little accidents should ne'er transpire; Some ages hence our genealogic tree

Will wear as green a bough for him as me)—
Waltzing shall rear, to make our name amends,
Grandsons for me-in heirs to all his friends.

· (1) [The "Giaour" was published in May 1813, and abundantly sustained the impression created by the two first cantos of Childe Harold. It is obvious that in this, the first of his romantic narratives, Lord Byron's versification reflects the admiration he always avowed for Mr. Coleridge's "Christabel," - the irregular rhythm of which had already been adopted in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel." The fragmentary style of the composition was suggested by the then new and popular "Columbus" of Mr. Rogers. As to the subject, it was not merely by recent travel that the author had familiarized himself with Turkish history. "Old Knolles," he said at Missolonghi, a few weeks before his death, "was one of the first books that gave me pleasure when a child; and I believe it had much in. fluence on my future wishes to visit the Levant, and gave, perhaps, the oriental colouring which is observed in my poetry." In the margin of his copy of Mr. D'Israeli's essay on "The Literary Character," we find the following note: -"Knolles, Cantemir, De Tott, Lady M. W. Montague, Hawkins's translation from Mignot's History of the Turks, the Arabian Nights. All travels or histories, or books upon the East, I could meet with, I had read, as well as Ricaut, before I was ten years old.” —E]