O, enviable Briareus! with thy hands And heads, if thou hadst all things multiplied In such proportion!—But my Muse withstands The giant thought of being a Titan’s bride, Or travelling in Patagonian lands; So let us back to Lilliput, and guide Our hero through the labyrinth of love In which we left him several lines above. He went forth with the lovely Odalisques, At the given signal join’d to their array; And though he certainly ran many risks, Yet he could not at times keep, by the way (Although the consequences of such frisks Are worse than the worst damages men pay In moral England, where the thing ’s a tax), From ogling all their charms from breasts to backs. Still he forgot not his disguise:—along The galleries from room to room they walk’d, A virgin-like and edifying throng, By eunuchs flank’d; while at their head there stalk’d A dame who kept up discipline among The female ranks, so that none stirr’d or talk’d Without her sanction on their she-parades: Her title was ‘the Mother of the Maids.’ Whether she was a ‘mother,’ I know not, Or whether they were ‘maids’ who call’d her mother; But this is her seraglio title, got I know not how, but good as any other; So Cantemir can tell you, or De Tott: Her office was to keep aloof or smother All bad propensities in fifteen hundred Young women, and correct them when they blunder’d. A goodly sinecure, no doubt! but made More easy by the absence of all men— Except his majesty, who, with her aid, And guards, and bolts, and walls, and now and then A slight example, just to cast a shade Along the rest, contrived to keep this den Of beauties cool as an Italian convent, Where all the passions have, alas! but one vent. And what is that? Devotion, doubtless—how Could you ask such a question?—but we will Continue. As I said, this goodly row Of ladies of all countries at the will Of one good man, with stately march and slow, Like water-lilies floating down a rill— Or rather lake, for rills do not run slowly— Paced on most maiden-like and melancholy. But when they reach’d their own apartments, there, Like birds, or boys, or bedlamites broke loose, Waves at spring-tide, or women anywhere When freed from bonds (which are of no great use After all), or like Irish at a fair, Their guards being gone, and as it were a truce Establish’d between them and bondage, they Began to sing, dance, chatter, smile, and play. Their talk, of course, ran most on the new comer; Her shape, her hair, her air, her everything: Some thought her dress did not so much become her, Or wonder’d at her ears without a ring; Some said her years were getting nigh their summer, Others contended they were but in spring; Some thought her rather masculine in height, While others wish’d that she had been so quite.