Her cheek is pale, and her eye is dim, And downward cast, yet not at the limb, Once the centre of all speculation; But downward drooping in comfort’s dearth, As gloomy thoughts are drawn to the earth-- Whence human sorrows derive their birth-- By a moral gravitation. Her golden hair is out of its braids, And her sighs betray the gloomy shades That her evil planet revolves in-- And tears are falling that catch a gleam So bright as they drop in the sunny beam, That tears of _aqua regia_ they seem, The water that gold dissolves in; Yet, not filial grief were shed Those tears for a mother’s insanity; Nor yet because her father was dead, For the bowing Sir Jacob had bow’d his head To Death--with his usual urbanity; The waters that down her visage rill’d Were drops of unrectified spirit distill’d From the limbeck of Pride and Vanity. Tears that fell alone and uncheckt, Without relief, and without respect, Like the fabled pearls that the pigs neglect, When pigs have that opportunity-- And of all the griefs that mortals share, The one that seems the hardest to bear Is the grief without community. How bless’d the heart that has a friend A sympathising ear to lend To troubles too great to smother! For as ale and porter, when flat, are restored Till a sparkling bubbling head they afford, So sorrow is cheer’d by being pour’d From one vessel into another. But friend or gossip she had not one To hear the vile deeds that the Count had done, How night after night he rambled; And how she had learnt by sad degrees That he drank, and smoked, and worse than these, That he “swindled, intrigued, and gambled.” How he kiss’d the maids, and sparr’d with John! And came to bed with his garments on; With other offences as heinous-- And brought _strange_ gentlemen home to dine, That he said were in the Fancy Line, And they fancied spirits instead of wine, And call’d her lap-dog “Wenus.” Of “making a book” how he made a stir But never had written a line to her, Once his idol and Cara Sposa; And how he had storm’d, and treated her ill, Because she refused to go down to a mill, She didn’t know where, but remember’d still That the Miller’s name was Mendoza. How often he waked her up at night, And oftener still by the morning light, Reeling home from his haunts unlawful; Singing songs that shouldn’t be sung, Except by beggars and thieves unhung-- Or volleying oaths that a foreign tongue Made still more horrid and awful!