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CXI
EPISTLE TO ALBERT DEW-SMITH
FIGURE me to yourself, I pray—
A man of my peculiar cut—
Apart from dancing and deray,[1]
Into an Alpine valley shut;
Shut in a kind of damned Hotel,
Discountenanced by God and man;
The food?—Sir, you would do as well
To cram your belly full of bran.
The company? Alas, the day
That I should dwell with such a crew,
With devil anything to say,
Nor any one to say it to!
The place? Although they call it Platz,
I will be bold and state my view;
It's not a place at all—and that's
The bottom verity, my Dew.
There are, as I will not deny,
Innumerable inns; a road;
Several Alps indifferent high;
The snow's inviolable abode;
- ↑ "The whole front of the house was lighted, and there were pipes and fiddles, and as much dancing and deray within as used to be in Sir Robert's house at Pace and Yule, and such high seasons."—See Wandering Willie's Tale in Redgauntlet, borrowed perhaps from Christ's Kirk of the Green.
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