Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY: OF PROPRIETY, by CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY: OF PROPRIETY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Study first propriety: for she is indeed the pole-star
Last Line: Tasteth of the cork.
Subject(s): Tupper, Martin Farquhar (1810-1889); Imitation; Humor


STUDY first Propriety: for she is indeed the Pole-star
Which shall guide the artless maiden through the mazes of Vanity Fair;
Nay, she is the golden chain which holdeth together Society;
The lamp by whose light young Psyche shall approach unblamed ber Eros.
Verily Truth is as Eve, which was ashamed being naked;
Wherefore doth Propriety dress her with the fair foliage of artifice:
And when she is dressed, behold! she knoweth not herself again.--
I walked in the Forest; and above me stood the Yew,
Stood like a slumbering giant, shrouded in impenetrable shade;
Then I passed into the citizen's garden, and marked a tree
clipped into shape,
(The giant's locks had been shorn by the Dalilah-shears of Decorum:)
And I said, 'Surely nature is goodly; but how much goodlier is Art!'
I heard the wild notes of the lark floating far over the blue sky,
And my foolish heart went after him, and, lo! I blessed
him as he rose;
Foolish! for far better is the trained boudoir bullfinch,
Which pipeth the semblance of a tune, and mechanically
draweth up water:
And the reinless steed of the desert, though his neck be
clothed with thunder,
Must yield to him that danceth and 'moveth in the circles'
at Astley's.

For verily. O my daughter, the world is a masquerade,
And God made thee one thing, that thou mightest make thyself another:
A maiden's heart is as champagne, ever aspiring and
struggling upwards,
And it needed that its motions be checked by the silvered
cork of Propriety:
He that can afford the price, his be the precious treasure.
Let him drink deeply of its sweetness, nor grumble if it
tasteth of the cork.





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