Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE MODERN FIRST LADY, by SOAME JENYNS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE MODERN FIRST LADY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Skilled in each art that can adorn the fair
Last Line: And with true scorpion rage she stings herself to death.
Subject(s): Death; Exiles; Grief; Tears; Dead, The; Sorrow; Sadness


SKILLED in each art that can adorn the fair,
The sprightly dance, the soft Italian air,
The toss of quality and high-bred fleer,
Now Lady Harriot reached her fifteenth year.
Winged with diversions all her moments flew,
Each, as it passed, presenting something new;
Breakfasts and auctions wear the morn away,
Each evening gives an opera, or a play;
Then brag's eternal joys all night remain,
And kindly usher in the morn again.
For love no time has she, or inclination,
Yet must coquet it for the sake of fashion;
For this she listens to each fop that's near,
Th' embroidered colonel flatters with a sneer,
And the cropped ensign nuzzles in her ear.
But with most warmth her dress and airs inspire
Th' ambitious bosom of the landed squire,
Who fain would quit plump Dolly's softer charms
For withered lean right honourable arms;
He bows with reverence at her sacred shrine,
And treats her as if sprung from race divine,
Which she returns with insolence and scorn,
Nor deigns to smile on a plebeian born.
Ere long by friends, by cards and lovers crossed,
Her fortune, health and reputation lost;
Her money gone, yet not a tradesman paid,
Her fame, yet she still damned to be a maid,
Her spirits sink, her nerves are so unstrung,
She weeps, if but a handsome thief is hung:
By mercers, lacemen, mantua-makers pressed,
But most for ready cash for play distressed,
Where can she turn?—the squire must all repair,
She condescends to listen to his pray'r,
And marries him at length in mere despair.
But soon th' endearments of a husband cloy,
Her soul, her frame incapable of joy:
She feels no transports in the bridal bed,
Of which so oft sh' has heard, so much has read;
Then vexed that she should be condemned alone
To seek in vain this philosophic stone,
To abler tutors she resolves t' apply,
A prostitute from curiosity.
Hence men of ev'ry sort and ev'ry size,
Impatient for heav'n's cordial drop, she tries;
The fribbling beau, the rough unwieldy clown,
The ruddy templar newly on the town,
Th' Hibernian captain of gigantic make,
The brimful parson, and th' exhausted rake.
But still malignant Fate her wish denies,
Cards yield superior joys, to cards she flies;
All night from rout to rout her chairmen run,
Again she plays, and is again undone.
Behold her now in Ruin's frightful jaws!
Bonds, judgements, executions ope their paws;
Seize jewels, furniture and plate, nor spare
The gilded chariot, or the tasseled chair;
For lonely seat she's forced to quit the town,
And Tubbs conveys the wretched exile down.
Now rumbling o'er the stones of Tyburn-road,
Ne'er pressed with a more grieved or guilty load,
She bids adieu to all the well-known streets,
And envies ev'ry cinder-wench she meets.
And now the dreaded country first appears:
With sighs unfeigned the dying noise she hears
Of distant coaches fainter by degrees,
Then starts, and trembles at the sight of trees.
Silent and sullen, like some captive queen,
She's drawn along, unwilling to be seen,
Until at length appears the ruined hall,
Within the grass-green moat and ivied wall,
The doleful prison where for ever she,
But not, alas! her griefs, must buried be.
Her coach the curate and the tradesmen meet,
Great-coated tenants her arrival greet,
And boys with stubble bonfires light the street,
While bells her ears with tongues discordant grate,
Types of the nuptial ties they celebrate:
But no rejoicings can unbend her brow,
Nor deigns she to return one awkward bow,
But bounces in, disdaining once to speak,
And wipes the trickling tear from off her cheek.
Now see her in the sad decline of life,
A peevish mistress, and a sulky wife;
Her nerves unbraced, her faded cheek grown pale
With many a real, and many a fancied ail;
Of cards, admirers, equipage bereft,
Her insolence and title only left;
Severely humbled to her one-horse chair,
And the low pastimes of a country fair:
Too wretched to endure one lonely day,
Too proud one friendly visit to repay,
Too indolent to read, too criminal to pray.
At length half-dead, half-mad, and quite confined,
Shunning, and shunned by, all of human kind,
Ev'n robbed of the last comfort of her life,
Insulting the poor curate's callous wife,
Pride, disappointed pride, now stops her breath,
And with true scorpion rage she stings herself to death.





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