The Magyar Dance

A very pretty piece of dreaming to fancy that a Magyar lad,
In leathern shoes and shortened breeches, can dance! O, no; but see him clad
In rattling spurs and plumy head-dress; and then, and then, when full of joy,
Before his pearl-browed Magyar maiden, O then behold the Magyar boy.

Our Magyar dance they say is lonely, a melancholy dance they say;
But see a Magyar foot when twinkling—is it not sportive, glad and gay?
Go to the Shimian fields and tell me, if ever fancy's busy glance
Dwelt on a scene so brightly joyous, or followed a more rapturous dance.

The dance of Gaul is affectation; and light though German dances be,
They are but an eternal sameness a wearisome mono-tony:
And gloomy are the English dances—a heavy and a tiresome chain;
But ours, but ours were consecrated, aye! down from old King David's reign.