Classic and Contemporary Poetry
PORTRAIT OF A LADY IN THE EXHIBITION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, by WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: What are you, lady? - naught is here Last Line: Were half as silent as their pictures! Variant Title(s): Every-day Characters: Portrait Of A Lady Subject(s): Exhibitions; Portraits; Royal Academy Of Arts, Great Britain; World's Fairs; Expositions | ||||||||
What are you, Lady?naught is here To tell us of your name or story; To claim the gazer's smile or tear, To dub you Whig, or daub you Tory. It is beyond a poet's skill To form the slightest notion, whether We e'er shall walk through one quadrille, Or look upon one moon together. You're very pretty!all the world Are talking of your bright brow's splendor, And of your locks, so softly curled, And of your hands, so white and slender: Some think you're blooming in Bengal; Some say you're blowing in the city; Some know you're nobody at all; I only feel, you're very pretty. But bless my heart! it's very wrong: You're making all our belles ferocious; Anne "never saw a chin so long"; And Laura thinks your dress "atrocious"; And Lady Jane, who now and then Is taken for the village steeple, Is sure you can't be four feet ten, And "wonders at the taste of people." Soon pass the praises of a face; Swift fades the very best vermilion; Fame rides a most prodigious pace; Oblivion follows on the pillion; And all, who, in these sultry rooms, To-day have stared, and pushed, and fainted, Will soon forget your pearls and plumes, As if they never had been painted. You'll be forgottenas old debts By persons who are used to borrow; Forgottenas the sun that sets, When shines a new one on the morrow; Forgottenlike the luscious peach, That blessed the school-boy last September; Forgottenlike a maiden speech, Which all men praise, but none remember. Yet, ere you sink into the stream, That whelms alike sage, saint, and martyr, And soldier's sword, and minstrel's theme, And Canning's wit, and Gatton's charter, Here of the fortunes of your youth My fancy weaves her dim conjectures, Which have, perhaps, as much of truth As Passion's vows, or Cobbett's lectures. Was't in the north or in the south, That summer-breezes rocked your cradle? And had you in your baby mouth A wooden or a silver ladle? And was your first, unconscious sleep, By Brownie banned, or blessed by Fairy? And did you wake to laugh or weep? And were you christened Maud or Mary? And was your father called "your Grace?" And did he bet at Ascot races? And did he chatter common-place? And did he fill a score of places? And did your lady-mother's charms Consist in picklings, broilings, bastings? Or did she prate about the arms Her brave forefathers wore at Hastings? Where were you "finished?" tell me where! Was it at Chelsea, or at Chiswick? Had you the ordinary share Of books and backboard, harp and physic? And did they bid you banish pride, And mind your oriental tinting? And did you learn how Dido died, And who found out the art of printing? And are you fond of lanes and brooks, A votary of the sylvan muses? Or do you con the little books Which Baron Brougham and Vaux diffuses? Or do you love to knit and sew, The fashionable world's Arachne? Or do you canter down the Row, Upon a very long-tailed hackney? And do you love your brother James? And do you pet his mares and setters? And have your friends romantic names? And do you write them long, long letters? And are yousince the world began All women area little spiteful? And don't you dote on Malibran? And don't you think Tom Moore delightful? I see they've brought you flowers to-day, Delicious food for eyes and noses; But carelessly you turn away From all the pinks, and all the roses; Say, is that fond look sent in search Of one whose look as fondly answers? And is he, fairest, in the Church, Or is heain't hein the Lancers? And is your love a motley page Of black and white, half joy, half sorrow? Are you to wait till you're of age? Or are you to be his to-morrow? Or do they bid you, in their scorn, Your pure and sinless flame to smother? Is he so very meanly born? Or are you married to another? Whate'er you are, at last, adieu! I think it is your bounden duty To let the rhymes I coin for you, Be prized by all who prize your beauty. From you I seek nor gold nor fame; From you I fear no cruel strictures; I wish some girls that I could name Were half as silent as their pictures! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TREAD THE DARK: 51 by DAVID IGNATOW ODE SUNG AT THE OPENING OF THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION by ALFRED TENNYSON INVITATION TO A PAINTER: 1 by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM AT THE FIREMEN'S EXHIBITION by CHARLES WILLIAM BRODRIBB ATLANTA EXPOSITION ODE by MARY WESTON FORDHAM A WELCOME TO THE FAIR by WILLIAM STEWARD GORDON THE LEWIS AND CLARK TRAIL by WILLIAM STEWARD GORDON WEBFOOT IN THE LEAD by WILLIAM STEWARD GORDON THE MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION (WRITTEN FOR MUSIC) by HENRY CLARENCE KENDALL GOOD-NIGHT TO THE SEASON by WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED SCHOOL AND SCHOOLFELLOWS; FLOREAT ETONA by WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED |
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