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THE FEAST OF THE VIOLETS.
117
Not as dancer theatrical, making a shew
(Bah!—shocking to think of—Excessively no!)
But gentleman-god-like, and all comme-il-faut.
Now with one, now with t'other he danc'd, now with ten!
For your god in his dancing is several men.
Fanny Butler he waltz'd with; he jigg'd it with Morgan;
With Hall he develop'd the rigadoon organ;
To Pardoe he shew'd Spain's impassion'd velocity;
Norton, the minuet's high reciprocity.
—Then he took Landon, ere she was aware,
Like a dove in a whirlwind, and whisk'd her in air;
Or as Zephyr might catch up some rose-haunting fay,
Or as Mercury once netted Flora, they say:[1]
And then again, stately, like any Sultaùn
With his Queen, he and Blessington trod a pavaùn,—
Which meaneth a "peacock dance." Truly 'twas grand to see
How they came spreading it, pavoneggiàndosi![2]
—Up, at the sight, rose the oldest at last,
And join'd in a gen'ral dance, "furious and fast,"
With which the god mingled, like fire in a wheel,
Pervading it, golden; till reel after reel,
Bearing sheer off its legs with them giddy three-score,
They spun to the supper-room, clean through the door.
(Bah!—shocking to think of—Excessively no!)
But gentleman-god-like, and all comme-il-faut.
Now with one, now with t'other he danc'd, now with ten!
For your god in his dancing is several men.
Fanny Butler he waltz'd with; he jigg'd it with Morgan;
With Hall he develop'd the rigadoon organ;
To Pardoe he shew'd Spain's impassion'd velocity;
Norton, the minuet's high reciprocity.
—Then he took Landon, ere she was aware,
Like a dove in a whirlwind, and whisk'd her in air;
Or as Zephyr might catch up some rose-haunting fay,
Or as Mercury once netted Flora, they say:[1]
And then again, stately, like any Sultaùn
With his Queen, he and Blessington trod a pavaùn,—
Which meaneth a "peacock dance." Truly 'twas grand to see
How they came spreading it, pavoneggiàndosi![2]
—Up, at the sight, rose the oldest at last,
And join'd in a gen'ral dance, "furious and fast,"
With which the god mingled, like fire in a wheel,
Pervading it, golden; till reel after reel,
Bearing sheer off its legs with them giddy three-score,
They spun to the supper-room, clean through the door.
- ↑ See a charming stanza in Ariosto, a picture by itself, in which he describes this adventure,—a fiction, I believe, of his own. (Orlando Furioso. Canto xv. st. 57.) A collection of additions to ancient mythology by modern poets, Ariosto, Spenser, and others, would make a delightful book.
- ↑ I find this word, accompanied by a due relish of it, in some papers on Dancing in the New Monthly Magazine. (See the number for May, 1836.) There is no language like the Italian for a happy magniloquence between jest and earnest. What a word is this pavoneggiàndosi for expressing the stately flow of an imitation of the peacock, with that lift too and sudden movement in the midst of it, marked by the accent! But I must not be tempted into these luxuries of annotation.
