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Describe the swaling of a jaunty air; And thus, when swirling from the waltz's wheel, You craved my hand to grace the next quadrille, That smiling voice, although it made me start, Boiled in the meek o'erlifting of my heart; And, picking at my flowers, I said, with free And usual tone, "O yes, sir, certainly!" Like one that swoons, 'twixt sweet amaze and fear, I heard the music burning in my ear, And felt I cared not, so thou wert with me, If Gurth or Wamba were our vis-a-vis. So, when a tall Knight Templar ringing came, And took his place amongst us with his dame, I neither turned away, nor bashful shrunk From the stern survey of the soldier-monk, Though rather more than three full quarters drunk; But, threading through the figure, first in rule, I paused to see thee plunge into La Poule. Ah, what a sight was that! Not prurient Mars, Pointing his toe through ten celestial bars-- Not young Apollo, beamily arrayed In tripsome guise for Juno's masquerade-- Not smartest Hermes, with his pinion girth, Jerking with freaks and snatches down to earth, Looked half so bold, so beautiful, and strong, As thou, when pranking through the glittering throng! How the calmed ladies looked with eyes of love On thy trim velvet doublet laced above; The hem of gold, that, like a wavy river, Flowed down into thy back with glancing shiver! So bare was thy fine throat, and curls of black, So lightsomely dropped in thy lordly back, So crisply swaled the feather in thy bonnet, So glanced thy thigh, and spanning palm upon it, That my weak soul took instant flight to thee, Lost in the fondest gush of that sweet witchery! But when the dance was o'er, and arm in arm (The full heart beating 'gainst the elbow warm) We passed into the great refreshment-hall, Where the heaped cheese-cakes and the comfits small Lay, like a hive of sunbeams, brought to burn Around the margin of the negus urn; When my poor quivering hand you fingered twice, And, with inquiring accents, whispered "Ice, Water, or cream?" I could no more dissemble, But dropped upon the couch all in a tremble. A swimming faintness misted o'er my brain, The corks seemed starting from the brisk champagne, The custards fell untouched upon the floor, Thine eyes met mine. That night we danced no more! The Cadi's Daughter. A LEGEND OF THE BOSPHORUS. [FROM ANY OF THE ANNUALS.] How beauteous is the star of night Within the eastern skies, Like the twinkling g
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