The street is still a lively tomb For rich, and gay, and clever; The crops of dandies bud and bloom, And die as fast as ever. Now gilded youth loves cutty pipes, And slang that’s rather scaring,―― It can’t approach its prototypes In taste, or tone, or bearing. In Brummell’s day of buckle shoes, Lawn cravats and roll collars, They’d fight, and woo, and bet――and lose Like gentlemen and scholars: I’m glad young men should go the pace, I half forgive _Old Rapid_; These louts disgrace their name and race,―― So vicious and so vapid! Worse times may come. _Bon ton_, indeed, Will then be quite forgotten, And all we much revere will speed From ripe to worse than rotten: Let grass then sprout between yon stones, And owls then roost at Boodle’s, For Echo will hurl back the tones Of screaming _Yankee Doodles_. I love the haunts of old Cockaigne, Where wit and wealth were squander’d; The halls that tell of hoop and train, Where grace and rank have wander’d; Those halls where ladies fair and leal First ventured to adore me! Something of that old love I feel For this old street before me. 1867. FREDERICK LOCKER. ST. JAMES’S STREET. OLD BALLAD. St. James’s-Street, of classic fame, The finest people throng it! St. James’s Street? I know the name! I think I’ve passed along it! Why, that’s where Sacharrissa sighed When Waller read his ditty; Where Byron lived, and Gibbon died, And Alvanley was witty. A famous street. It skirts the Park Where Rogers took his pastime; Come, gaze on fifty men of mark, And then call up the fast time. The _plâts_ at White’s, the play at Crock’s, The bumpers to Miss Gunning; The _bonhomie_ of Charlie Fox, And Selwyn’s ghastly funning. The dear old street of clubs and cribs, As north and south it stretches, Still smacks of William’s pungent squibs, And Gilray’s fiercer sketches; The quaint old dress, the grand old style, The _mots_, the racy stories; The wine, the dice; the wit, the bile, The hate of Whigs and Tories. At dusk, when I am strolling there, Dim forms will rise around me; Old Pepys creeps past me in his chair, And Congreve’s airs astound me, And once Nell Gwynne, a frail young sprite, Looked kindly when I met her; I shook my head, perhaps――but quite Forgot to quite forget her. The street is still a lively tomb For rich and gay and clever; The crops of dandies bud and bloom, And die as fast as ever. Now gilded youth loves cutty-pipes And slang that’s rather rancid, It can’t approach its prototypes In tone――or so I’ve fancied.