The County Ball

Well, Heaven be thank’d my first-love fail’d,As, Heaven be thank’d, our first-loves do!Thought I, when Fanny past me sail’d,Loved once, for what I never knew,Unless for colouring in her talk,When cheeks and merry mouth would showThree roses on a single stalk,The middle wanting room to blow,And forward ways, that charm’d the boyWhose love-sick mind, misreading fate,Scarce hoped that any Queen of JoyCould ever stoop to be his mate.

But there danced she, who from the leavenOf ill preserv’d my heart and witAll unawares, for she was heaven,Others at best but fit for it.One of those lovely things she wasIn whose least action there can beNothing so transient but it hasAn air of immortality.I mark’d her step, with peace elate,Her brow more beautiful than morn,Her sometime look of girlish stateWhich sweetly waived its right to scorn;The giddy crowd, she grave the while,Although, as ’twere beyond her will,Around her mouth the baby smileThat she was born with linger’d still.Her ball-dress seem’d a breathing mist,From the fair form exhaled and shed,Raised in the dance with arm and wristAll warmth and light, unbraceleted.Her motion, feeling ’twas beloved,The pensive soul of tune express’d,And, oh, what perfume, as she moved,Came from the flowers in her breast!How sweet a tongue the music had!‘Beautiful Girl,’ it seem’d to say,‘Though all the world were vile and sad,Dance on; let innocence be gay.’Ah, none but I discern’d her looks,When in the throng she pass’d me by,For love is like a ghost, and brooksOnly the chosen seer’s eye;And who but she could e’er divineThe halo and the happy trance,When her bright arm reposed on mine,In all the pauses of the dance!

Whilst so her beauty fed my sight,And whilst I lived in what she said,Accordant airs, like all delightMost sweet when noted least, were play’d;And was it like the PhariseeIf I in secret bow’d my faceWith joyful thanks that I should be,Not as were many, but with graceAnd fortune of well-nurtured youth,And days no sordid pains defile,And thoughts accustom’d to the truth,Made capable of her fair smile?

Charles Barton follow’d down the stair,To talk with me about the Ball,And carp at all the people there.The Churchills chiefly stirr’d his gall:‘Such were the Kriemhilds and IsondesYou storm’d about at Trinity!Nothing at heart but handsome Blondes!‘Folk say that you and Fanny Fry—’‘They err! Good-night! Here lies my course,Through Wilton.’ Silence blest my ears,And, weak at heart with vague remorse,A passing poignancy of tearsAttack’d mine eyes. By pale and parkI rode, and ever seem’d to see,In the transparent starry dark,That splendid brow of chastity,That soft and yet subduing light,At which, as at the sudden moon,I held my breath, and thought ‘how bright!’That guileless beauty in its noon,Compelling tribute of desiresArdent as day when Sirius reigns,Pure as the permeating firesThat smoulder in the opal’s veins.