BEAUTIES! -- (for, dressed with so much taste, All may with such a term be graced,) -- Attend the friendly stanza, Which deprecates the threatened change Of English modes for fashions strange, And French extravaganza. What! when her sons renown have won In arts and arms, and proudly shone A pattern to the nations, Shall England's recreant @3daughters@1 kneel At Gallic shrines, and stop to steal Fantastic innovations? Domestic -- simple -- chaste -- sedate -- Your fashions now assimilate Your virtues and your duties: -- With all the dignity of Rome, The Grecian Graces find a home In England's classic Beauties. When we behold so fit a shrine, We deem its inmate all divine, And thoughts licentious bridle; But if the case be tasteless, rude, Grotesque, and glaring -- we conclude It holds some worthless idol. Let Gallia's nymphs of ardent mind, To every wild extreme inclined, In folly be consistent; Their failings let their @3modes@1 express, From simpleness of soul and dress, For ever equi-distant. True to your staid and even port, Let mad extremes of every sort With steady scorn be treated; Nor by art's modish follies mar The sweetest, loveliest work by far That nature has completed: -- For oh! if in the world's wide round One peerless object may be found, A something more than human; The faultless paragon confessed May in one line be all expressed -- A WELL-DRESSED ENGLISH WOMAN. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...COLUMBUS by EDWARD EVERETT HALE THE BLACKBIRD by ALFRED TENNYSON THE NIGHT SONG by MARY DELL ALLEN THE ALBION QUEENS, ACT 1: THE WONDER by JOHN BANKS (17TH CENTURY-) SONNETS OF MANHOOD: 10. LONELY by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) POLYHYMNIA: SONNET TO LADY FALKLAND UPON HER GOING TO INTO IRELAND by WILLIAM BASSE |