Is Winter hideous in a garb like this? Needs he the tragic fur, the smoke of lamps, The pent-up breath of an unsavoury throng To thaw him into feeling, or the smart And snappish dialogue that flippant wits Call comedy, to prompt him with a smile? The self-complacent actor, when he views (Stealing a sidelong glance at a full house) The slope of faces from the floor to the roof, As if one master-spring controlled them all, Relaxed into an universal grin, Sees not a countenance there that speaks a joy Half so refined or so sincere as ours. Cards were superfluous here, with all the tricks That idleness has ever yet contrived To fill the void of an unfurnished brain, To palliate dulness and give time a shove. Time, as he passes us, has a dove’s wing, Unsoiled and swift and of a silken sound. But the world’s time is time in masquerade. Theirs, should I paint him, has his pinions fledged With motley plumes, and, where the peacock shows His azure eyes, is tinctured black and red With spots quadrangular of diamond form, Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife, And spades, the emblem of untimely graves. What should be, and what was an hour-glass once, Becomes a dice-box, and a billiard mast Well does the work of his destructive scythe. Thus decked he charms a world whom fashion blinds To his true worth, most pleased when idle most, Whose only happy are their wasted hours. Even misses, at whose age their mothers wore The back-string and the bib, assume the dress Of womanhood, sit pupils in the school Of card-devoted time, and night by night, Placed at some vacant corner of the board, Learn every trick, and soon play all the game. But truce with censure. Roving as I rove, Where shall I find an end, or how proceed? As he that travels far, oft turns aside To view some rugged rock, or mouldering tower, Which seen delights him not; then coming home, Describes and prints it, that the world may know How far he went for what was nothing worth; So I, with brush in hand and pallet spread With colours mixed for a far different use, Paint cards and dolls, and every idle thing That fancy finds in her excursive flights.