See the richly-dowered belles, Golden belles, How they cotton to the stupid-headed swells. With what grace and matchless art They can play their pretty part For the quartered coats of arms! Champerones How they advertise the charms Of their darlings,――with ever ready alarms Undertones! Oh! and then these high-born swells, What a want of education their conversation tells. How it sells, How it dwells Upon bathos! how it tells Of the lesson that impels All the sighing and the lying Of the belles, belles, belles, Of the belles, belles, belles, belles, Belles, belles, belles, All the glancing and the dancing of the belles. Hear the loudly-talking belles, Prancing belles, How we sorrowfully gaze upon their costume, since it tells Of the latest Paris fashion! And the dark eyes how they flash on Every simple-looking girl! They can only whirl, whirl To the tune, With a noisy explanation of their doings in the Row, With a careless declaration that the ball is very slow. Dancing round, round, round, To the merry music’s sound, Never pausing for a breath, Tho’ their partners pale as death, Look and gasp as if they’d fall into a swoon. Oh, you belles, belles, belles, What a tale your muslin tells; And your hair. How you sneer and pick to pieces MAJOR MABERLY’S six nieces, How you flirt upon the fifty-seventh stair; Yet the people guess at last, By your laughing, And your chaffing, Your vocabulary’s fast. And the ear distinctly tells You are slangy, And slap-bangy, From your joking with the swells, And their easy conversation with the loudly-talking belles, With the belles, With the belles, belles, belles, belles, Belles, belles, belles, From the grinning and the dinning of the bells! _Fun_, December 30, 1865. ――――:o:―――― PILLS. _An Edgar Poe(m)._