The Talented Man
by Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802-1839)

Dear Alice! you’ll laugh when you know it,—
      Last week, at the Duchess’s ball,
I danced with the clever new poet,—
      You’ve heard of him,—Tully St. Paul.
Miss Jonquil was perfectly frantic;
      I wish you had seen Lady Anne!
It really was very romantic,
      He is such a talanted man!

He came up from Brazenose College,
      Just caught, as they call it, this spring;
And his head, love, is stuffed full of knowledge
      Of every conceivable thing.
Of science and logic he chatters,
      As fine and as fast as he can;
Though I am no judge of such matters,
      I’m sure he’s a talented man.

His stories and jests are delightful;—
      Not stories or jests, dear, for you;
The jests are exceedingly spiteful,
      The stories not always quite true.
Perhaps to be kind and veracious
      May do pretty well at Lausanne;
But it never would answer,—good gracious!
      Chez nous—in a talented man.

He sneers,—how my Alice would scold him! —
      At the bliss of a sigh or a tear;
He laughed—only think!—when I told him
      How we cried o’er Trevelyan last year;
I vow I was quite in a passion;
      I broke all the sticks of my fan;
But sentiment’s quite out of fashion,
      It seems, in a talented man.

Lady Bab, who is terribly moral,
      Has told me that Tully is vain,
And apt—which is silly—to quarrel,
      And fond—which is sad—of champagne.
I listened, and doubted, dear Alice,
      For I saw, when my Lady began,
It was only the Dowager’s malice;—
      She does hate a talented man!

He’s hideous, I own it. But fame, love,
      Is all that these eyes can adore;
He’s lame,—but Lord Byron was lame, love,
      And dumpy,—but so is Tom Moore.
Then his voice,—such a voice! my sweet creature,
      It’s like your Aunt Lucy’s toucan:
But oh! what’s a tone or a feature,
      When once one’s a talented man?

My mother, you know, all the season,
      Has talked of Sir Geoffrey’s estate;
And truly, to do the fool reason,
      He has been less horrid of late.
But today, when we drive in the carriage,
      I’ll tell her to lay down her plan;—
If ever I venture on marriage,
      It must be a talented man!

P.S.—I have found, on reflection,
      One fault in my friend,—entre nous;
Without it, he’d just be perfection;—
      Poor fellow, he has not a sou!
And so, when he comes in September
      To shoot with my uncle, Sir Dan,
I’ve promised mamma to remember
      He’s only a talented man!

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