quote · Legacy record

I saw her at the County Ball: There, when the sounds of flute and fiddle Gave signal sweet in that old hall Of hands across and down the middle, Hers was the subtlest spell by far Of all that set young hearts romancing; She was our queen, our rose, our star; And then she danced—O Heaven, her dancing! Through sunny May, through sultry June, I loved her with a love eternal; I spoke her praises to the moon, I wrote them to the Sunday Journal: My mother laugh’d: I soon found out That ancient ladies have no feeling; My father frown’d: but how should gout See any happiness in kneeling?... She smiled on many, just for fun,— I knew that there was nothing in it; I was the first—the only one Her heart had thought of for a minute.— I knew it, for she told me so, In phrase which was divinely moulded; She wrote a charming hand,—and oh! How sweetly all her notes were folded! ... We parted; months and years roll’d by We met again four summers after: Our parting was all sob and sigh; Our meeting was all mirth and laughter: For in my heart’s most secret cell There had been many other lodgers; And she was not the ball-room’s Belle, But only—Mrs. Something Rogers!

I saw her at the County Ball: There, when the sounds of flute and fiddle Gave signal sweet in that old hall Of hands across and down the middle, Hers was the subtlest spell by far Of all that set young hearts romancing; She was our queen, our rose, our star; And then she danced—O Heaven, her dancing! Through sunny May, through sultry June, I loved her with a love eternal; I spoke her praises to the moon, I wrote them to the Sunday Journal: My mother laugh’d: I soon found out That ancient ladies have no feeling; My father frown’d: but how should gout See any happiness in kneeling?... She smiled on many, just for fun,— I knew that there was nothing in it; I was the first—the only one Her heart had thought of for a minute.— I knew it, for she told me so, In phrase which was divinely moulded; She wrote a charming hand,—and oh! How sweetly all her notes were folded! ... We parted; months and years roll’d by We met again four summers after: Our parting was all sob and sigh; Our meeting was all mirth and laughter: For in my heart’s most secret cell There had been many other lodgers; And she was not the ball-room’s Belle, But only—Mrs. Something Rogers!

Approximate author period: c. 1820 AD · industrial