A Sketch

  1. 1"Honest--honest Iago!
  2. 2If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee."
Shakespeare.
  1. 3Born in the garret, in the kitchen bred,
  2. 4Promoted thence to deck her mistress' head;
  3. 5Next--for some gracious service unexpressed,
  4. 6And from its wages only to be guessed--
  5. 7Raised from the toilet to the table,--where
  6. 8Her wondering betters wait behind her chair.
  7. 9With eye unmoved, and forehead unabashed,
  8. 10She dines from off the plate she lately washed.
  9. 11Quick with the tale, and ready with the lie,
  10. 12The genial confidante, and general spy--
  11. 13Who could, ye gods! her next employment guess--
  12. 14An only infant's earliest governess!
  13. 15She taught the child to read, and taught so well,
  14. 16That she herself, by teaching, learned to spell.
  15. 17An adept next in penmanship she grows,
  16. 18As many a nameless slander deftly shows:
  17. 19What she had made the pupil of her art,
  18. 20None know--but that high Soul secured the heart,
  19. 21And panted for the truth it could not hear,
  20. 22With longing breast and undeluded ear.
  21. 23Foiled was perversion by that youthful mind,
  22. 24Which Flattery fooled not, Baseness could not blind,
  23. 25Deceit infect not, near Contagion soil,
  24. 26Indulgence weaken, nor Example spoil,
  25. 27Nor mastered Science tempt her to look down
  26. 28On humbler talents with a pitying frown,
  27. 29Nor Genius swell, nor Beauty render vain,
  28. 30Nor Envy ruffle to retaliate pain,
  29. 31Nor Fortune change, Pride raise, nor Passion bow,
  30. 32Nor Virtue teach austerity--till now.
  31. 33Serenely purest of her sex that live,
  32. 34But wanting one sweet weakness--to forgive;
  33. 35Too shocked at faults her soul can never know,
  34. 36She deems that all could be like her below:
  35. 37Foe to all vice, yet hardly Virtue's friend,
  36. 38For Virtue pardons those she would amend.
  1. 39But to the theme, now laid aside too long,
  2. 40The baleful burthen of this honest song,
  3. 41Though all her former functions are no more,
  4. 42She rules the circle which she served before.
  5. 43If mothers--none know why--before her quake;
  6. 44If daughters dread her for the mothers' sake;
  7. 45If early habits--those false links, which bind
  8. 46At times the loftiest to the meanest mind--
  9. 47Have given her power too deeply to instil
  10. 48The angry essence of her deadly will;
  11. 49If like a snake she steal within your walls,
  12. 50Till the black slime betray her as she crawls;
  13. 51If like a viper to the heart she wind,
  14. 52And leave the venom there she did not find;
  15. 53What marvel that this hag of hatred works
  16. 54Eternal evil latent as she lurks,
  17. 55To make a Pandemonium where she dwells,
  18. 56And reign the Hecate of domestic hells?
  19. 57Skilled by a touch to deepen Scandal's tints
  20. 58With all the kind mendacity of hints,
  21. 59While mingling truth with falsehood--sneers with smiles--
  22. 60A thread of candour with a web of wiles;
  23. 61A plain blunt show of briefly-spoken seeming,
  24. 62To hide her bloodless heart's soul-hardened scheming;
  25. 63A lip of lies; a face formed to conceal,
  26. 64And, without feeling, mock at all who feel:
  27. 65With a vile mask the Gorgon would disown,--
  28. 66A cheek of parchment, and an eye of stone.
  29. 67Mark, how the channels of her yellow blood
  30. 68Ooze to her skin, and stagnate there to mud,
  31. 69Cased like the centipede in saffron mail,
  32. 70Or darker greenness of the scorpion's scale--
  33. 71(For drawn from reptiles only may we trace
  34. 72Congenial colours in that soul or face)--
  35. 73Look on her features! and behold her mind
  36. 74As in a mirror of itself defined:
  37. 75Look on the picture! deem it not o'ercharged--
  38. 76There is no trait which might not be enlarged:
  39. 77Yet true to "Nature's journeymen," who made
  40. 78This monster when their mistress left off trade--
  41. 79This female dog-star of her little sky,
  42. 80Where all beneath her influence droop or die.
  1. 81Oh! wretch without a tear--without a thought,
  2. 82Save joy above the ruin thou hast wrought--
  3. 83The time shall come, nor long remote, when thou
  4. 84Shalt feel far more than thou inflictest now;
  5. 85Feel for thy vile self-loving self in vain,
  6. 86And turn thee howling in unpitied pain.
  7. 87May the strong curse of crushed affections light
  8. 88Back on thy bosom with reflected blight!
  9. 89And make thee in thy leprosy of mind
  10. 90As loathsome to thyself as to mankind!
  11. 91Till all thy self-thoughts curdle into hate,
  12. 92Black--as thy will or others would create:
  13. 93Till thy hard heart be calcined into dust,
  14. 94And thy soul welter in its hideous crust.
  15. 95Oh, may thy grave be sleepless as the bed,
  16. 96The widowed couch of fire, that thou hast spread!
  17. 97Then, when thou fain wouldst weary Heaven with prayer,
  18. 98Look on thine earthly victims--and despair!
  19. 99Down to the dust!--and, as thou rott'st away,
  20. 100Even worms shall perish on thy poisonous clay.
  21. 101But for the love I bore, and still must bear,
  22. 102To her thy malice from all ties would tear--
  23. 103Thy name--thy human name--to every eye
  24. 104The climax of all scorn should hang on high,
  25. 105Exalted o'er thy less abhorred compeers--
  26. 106And festering in the infamy of years.