The clock struck ten, the carriages drew up before the gate, The ton display their quality by coming rather late. A crowd it was, you may be sure, of opulence and fashion, For Mrs. Browne had for high life what one would call a passion. There were satins, muslin, taffetas and laces, and illusion Like all the rainbows since the flood crushed in one grand confusion, And as her guests the parlor thronged, delighted Mrs. Browne Felt just a notch or two above all rival Mas in town. O feminine, O masculine embarrassment of riches! For those who wore and those who longed for bifurcated breeches! There was flouncing Miss Barege, and grass-widow, Madame Clack, Miss Creame-Cocaine, the dreamer, whey-faced, of morals slack, Miss Polly Prude, the finical, fastidious and precise, Miss Reverie, a tall bas bleu with sentimental eyes, Miss Twitchell, always twitching, Miss Giggle with her twitter, Miss Dumb-Bell of the wallflower set, a most accomplished sitter, All planets of the Milky Way; as for the herd of beaux, Know one, know all--mustachios, gloves, smirks, bows and faultless clothes. But for laughing and screaming and ogling and dancing, Coquetting and ogling and sighing and glancing, Madame Mazourka that night made her mark, As a punk that took fire at the flash of each spark, So high in her waltzing, so low in her dress, that She really left gazers very little to guess at. For each time that she bounded or gracefully fell-- For where her grace bounded, sin much more abounded-- Each curve was so plumply and gracefully rounded-- The dullest of eyes could discern the fine swell Of her dress, and much more than is proper to tell. I’ve a hearty contempt--I hope nobody’s hurt For that pitiful nuisance, a married flirt, Whether it wears a chemise or shirt, For when the green season of myrtles is o’er This wrinkled-faced courtship is rather a bore, And the musk and the paint on an old married lover Don’t smell quite as sweetly as newly mown clover. O you who are wedded, take care how you walk! For the world is suspicious and people will talk, And spectators may say--no accounting for taste-- No arm but a husband’s should encircle the waist Of a lady that’s married, in the waltz’s mad whirls, And no finger but his should disport with her curls; But back to my story--the sin of digression It’s really becoming my crying transgression, But your feelings will hurry you sometimes away, And genius, kind reader, you know must have play.