Peter Marié

O GLORIOUS Brown! thou medley strange

Of church-yard, ball-room, saint, and sinner;

Flying by morn through Fashion’s range,

And burying mortals after dinner—

Walking one day with invitations,

Passing the next at consecrations,

Tossing the sod at eve on coffins,

With one hand drying tears of orphans

And one unclasping ball-room carriage,

Or cutting plum-cake up at marriage—

Dusting by day the pew and missal—

Sounding by night the ball-room whistle—

Admitted free through Fashion’s wicket,

And skilled at psalms, at punch, at cricket;

Relate by what mysterious art

Thou canst so well fulfil thy part—

And how, thus sorely tasked each week,

Thou look’st so happy, fat and sleek.

Repeat to us the prittle-prattle

About thine ears must daily rattle,

When marching round through Fashion’s quarters

Thou’rt questioned oft by Eve’s fair daughters,

And tell us why seek up, seek down,

O’er all the earth, there’s but one Brown—

One man alone whom church and state

At once consent to consecrate,

With license boundless to combine

The pew, the ball, the hearse, the wine!