She was not doom'd, for bread to eat, To be put to her hands as well as her feet-- To carry home linen from mangles-- Or heavy-hearted, and weary-limb'd, To dance on a rope in a jacket trimm'd With as many blows as spangles. XXI. She was one of those who by Fortune's boon Are born, as they say, with a silver spoon In her mouth, not a wooden ladle: To speak according to poet's wont, Plutus as sponsor stood at her font, And Midas rocked the cradle. XXII. At her first _debut_ she found her head On a pillow of down, in a downy bed, With a damask canopy over. For although, by the vulgar popular saw, All mothers are said to be "in the straw," Some children are born in clover. XXIII. Her very first draught of vital air, It was not the common chameleon fare Of plebeian lungs and noses,-- No--her earliest sniff Of this world was a whiff Of the genuine Otto of Roses! XXIV. When she saw the light, it was no mere ray Of that light so common--so everyday-- That the sun each morning launches-- But six wax tapers dazzled her eyes, From a thing--a gooseberry bush for size-- With a golden stem and branches. XXV. She was born exactly at half-past two, As witness'd a timepiece in ormolu That stood on a marble table-- Showing at once the time of day, And a team of _Gildings_ running away As fast as they were able, With a golden God, with a golden Star, And a golden Spear, in a golden Car, According to Grecian fable. XXVI. Like other babes, at her birth she cried; Which made a sensation far and wide-- Ay, for twenty miles around her: For though to the ear 'twas nothing more Than an infant's squall, it was really the roar Of a Fifty-thousand Pounder! It shook the next heir In his library chair, And made him cry, "Confound her!" XXVII. Of signs and omens there was no dearth, Any more than at Owen Glendower's birth, Or the advent of other great people Two bullocks dropp'd dead, As if knock'd on the head, And barrels of stout And ale ran about, And the village bells such a peal rang out, That they crack'd the village steeple. XXVIII. In no time at all, like mushroom spawn, Tables sprang up all over the lawn; Not furnish'd scantly or shabbily, But on scale as vast As that huge repast, With its loads and cargoes Of drink and botargoes, At the Birth of the Babe in Rabelais. XXIX. Hundreds of men were turn'd into beasts, Like the guests at Circe's horrible feasts, By the magic of ale and cider: And each country lass, and each country lad Began to caper and dance like mad, And ev'n some old ones appear'd to have had A bite from the Naples Spider. XXX. Then as night came on, It had scared King John Who considered such signs not risible, To have seen the maroons, And the whirling moons, And the serpents of flame, And wheels of the same, That according to some were "whizzable." XXXI.