Classic Poem

See the ball-room thick crowded, the dance is begun,
Hear, thro' the bright circle, what soft murmers run;
A thousand gay characters float in the maze,
Lords, gamblers, fine ladies, all keep up the gaze:
While, with neck like a swan, and with high beating breast,
With waist nicely taper'd, and form'd to be press'd,
Scarcely touching the floor, full of frolic and game,
The Elegant Fair One first challenges fame.

Now the park's thickly throng'd, the high phaeton see,
The delicate hunter, gilt coach, vis-a-vis,
Each grace, and each charm, every party displays,
And fashion peeps forth in a thousand sweet ways;
While alike fitly bred for the ball-room or course,
The phaeton to drive, or to curb the fleet horse;
By this time fair virtue's an obsolete word,
And the Elegant Fair One's a whore to a lord!

Grown stale, somewhat aged, unfit for my lord,
Devoid of all passion, her appetites cloy'd;
While beaux and box-swellers her pedigree trace,
Tell whose she has been, from the groom to his grace,
And what style she has liv'd in with pleasure counto'er,
As they loiter their time at some bagnio door;
While with poverty sunk, and diseases weigh'd down,
The Elegant Fair One's a girl on the town.

At length from St. James's to Wapping she strays,
Her blood all polluted, her system decays!
On straw, at some bunter's, she gives up her breath,
Or in some filthy kennel's arrested by death!
Who so lately each pomp, and each gaiety knew,
Is left a most horrible sight to the view;
Her relics, a pitying crowd now behold,
And the Elegant Fair One to the surgeon is sold!