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Rends the portmanteau-straps and tugs the hampers.
Now, hellish Breughle, lend thy pincers’ aid
That I, from far, may catch that mad parade;
My feeble pen can offer of that scene a
Mere shade of mummeries, tricks a record scanty
Over the relics of those drowned cantanti,
Those mimers, prime-donne, ballerine;
A whirlwind of impatient, apish pickers
’Tis now that dips and rages in that frippery
Of tinsel robes;—with what grotesques it flickers,
What comic postures as they tug the heap awry!
Here with fantastic casque that frames in her face
A cat ape’s gibbering from the mirror’s surface;
One in Mephisto’s ruddy trowsers sticketh
Her ape’s hand: here a foot, in gauntlet shod, is
Thrust through the sleeve of Margarita’s bodice:
On triangle with sceptre here one clicketh;
And here’s an ape, his fur with snow-drift crowned,
From full fist flings the puff powder around,
Till all’s just like a shop of Paris plaster:
Behind him one, a mimic modern master,
Stripes all his back, a brush assiduous plying
Well charged with chalk and ruddle: here one, eyeing
The scene through pince-nez, flourished to and fro,
Dressed half antique-wise, half in rokoko,
Head over heels above the drums goes flying.
Some type here of all lands’, all nations’ clothes is,
Arms that have threatened death in every age,
Wigs and moustachios, with all sorts of noses,
Masks, padded calves for sylph or ballet page.
Here laurel wreaths with ribbon, goblet, fan, are
Once more alive, scores wave and many a banner
