Why should we paint, in tedious song, How every day, and all day long, They drove at first with curious haste Through Lud's vast town; or, as they passed 'Midst risings, fallings, and repairs Of streets on streets, and squares on squares, Describe how strong their wonder grew At buildings--and at builders too? Scarce less astonishment arose At architects more fair than those-- Who built as high, as widely spread The enormous loads that clothed their head. For British dames new follies love, And, if they can't invent, improve. Some with erect pagodas vie, Some nod, like Pisa's tower, awry, Medusa's snakes, with Pallas' crest, Convolved, contorted, and compressed; With intermingling trees, and flowers, And corn, and grass, and shepherd's bowers, Stage above stage the turrets run, Like pendent groves of Babylon, Till nodding from the topmost wall Otranto's plumes envelop all! Whilst the black ewes, who owned the hair, Feed harmless on, in pastures fair, Unconscious that their tails perfume, In scented curls, the drawing-room. When Night her murky pinions spread, And sober folks retire to bed, To every public place they flew, Where Jenny told them who was who. Money was always at command, And tripped with pleasure hand in hand. Money was equipage, was show, Gallini's, Almack's, and Soho; The _passe-partout_ through every vein Of dissipation's hydra reign. O London, thou prolific source, Parent of vice, and folly's nurse! Fruitful as Nile, thy copious springs Spawn hourly births--and all with stings: But happiest far the he, or she, I know not which, that livelier dunce Who first contrived the coterie, To crush domestic bliss at once. Then grinned, no doubt, amidst the dames, As Nero fiddled to the flames. Of thee, Pantheon, let me speak With reverence, though in numbers weak; Thy beauties satire's frown beguile, We spare the follies for the pile. Flounced, furbelowed, and tricked for show, With lamps above, and lamps below, Thy charms even modern taste defied, They could not spoil thee, though they tried. Ah, pity that Time's hasty wings Must sweep thee off with vulgar things! Let architects of humbler name On frail materials build their fame, Their noblest works the world might want, Wyatt should build in adamant. But what are these to scenes which lie Secreted from the vulgar eye, And baffle all the powers of song?-- A brazen throat, an iron tongue, (Which poets wish for, when at length Their subject soars above their strength,) Would shun the task. Our humbler Muse, Who only reads the public news And idly utters what she gleans From chronicles and magazines, Recoiling feels her feeble fires, And blushing to her shades retires, Alas! she knows not how to treat The finer follies of the great, Where even, Democritus, thy sneer Were vain as Heraclitus' tear.