Light Verse from the Memoir
Headnote
Three pieces of drawing-room verse first printed in chapter V of the 1871 Memoir as specimens of Austen’s ’liveliness of mind’: the 1811 newspaper rhyme on Mr. Gell and Miss Gill of Eastbourne, the epigram on Maria’s marrying a Mr. Wake, and the mock panegyric on her niece Anna, whose wit ’descends on foes and friends like famed Niagara’s Fall.’ The Memoir’s connecting prose is not Austen’s and is omitted.
At Eastbourne Mr. Gell, From being perfectly well,
Became dreadfully ill, For love of Miss Gill.
So he said, with some sighs, I’m the slave of your iis;
Oh, restore, if you please, By accepting my ees.
Became dreadfully ill, For love of Miss Gill.
So he said, with some sighs, I’m the slave of your iis;
Oh, restore, if you please, By accepting my ees.
ON THE MARRIAGE OF A MIDDLE-AGED FLIRT WITH A MR. WAKE, WHOM, IT WAS SUPPOSED, SHE WOULD SCARCELY HAVE ACCEPTED IN HER YOUTH.
1.
In measured verse I’ll now rehearse
The charms of lovely Anna:
And, first, her mind is unconfined
Like any vast savannah.
In measured verse I’ll now rehearse
The charms of lovely Anna:
And, first, her mind is unconfined
Like any vast savannah.
2.
Ontario’s lake may fitly speak
Her fancy’s ample bound:
Its circuit may, on strict survey
Five hundred miles be found.
Ontario’s lake may fitly speak
Her fancy’s ample bound:
Its circuit may, on strict survey
Five hundred miles be found.
3.
Her wit descends on foes and friends
Like famed Niagara’s Fall;
And travellers gaze in wild amaze,
And listen, one and all.
Her wit descends on foes and friends
Like famed Niagara’s Fall;
And travellers gaze in wild amaze,
And listen, one and all.
4.
Her judgment sound, thick, black, profound,
Like transatlantic groves,
Dispenses aid, and friendly shade
To all that in it roves.
Her judgment sound, thick, black, profound,
Like transatlantic groves,
Dispenses aid, and friendly shade
To all that in it roves.
5.
If thus her mind to be defined
America exhausts,
And all that’s grand in that great land
In similes it costs–
If thus her mind to be defined
America exhausts,
And all that’s grand in that great land
In similes it costs–
6.
Oh how can I her person try
To image and portray?
How paint the face, the form how trace
In which those virtues lay?
Oh how can I her person try
To image and portray?
How paint the face, the form how trace
In which those virtues lay?
7.
Another world must be unfurled,
Another language known,
Ere tongue or sound can publish round
Her charms of flesh and bone.
Another world must be unfurled,
Another language known,
Ere tongue or sound can publish round
Her charms of flesh and bone.