Classic Poem

Now's the time to change our clime,
Commerce shuts his day-book,
Trade forgets his doubtful debts,
And Pleasure opes his play-book!
Age throws off his winter cough,
Gout forgets his flannel,
Small and great at Dover wait,
To cross the British Channel.
London now is out of town,
Who in England tarries,
Who can bear to linger there,
When all the world's in Paris?

Bagatelle from Clerkenwell,
Elegance from Aldgate,
Modish airs from Wapping Stairs,
And wit from Norton Falgate;
Comme il faut from Butcher Row,
All are in commotion,
All incline, like devilled swine,
To nuzzle through the ocean.
London now is out of town, &c.

Broken Jews, poetic blues,
Cortezans and Quakers,
Players, Peers, and overseers,
Jockeys, undertakers;
Paris, who beheld a crew
Of foreign troops attack her,
In these may trace a second race
Of Visigoths to sack her!
London now is out of town, &c.

Who'd endure a cheap traiteur?
Come where better cheer is,
Ape the court, along to sport
A louis d'or at Very's:
He at six, who runs to mix
In Palais Royal follies,
In London town, for half-a-crown,
Must eat a chop at Dolly's.
London now is out of town, &c.

City dames the rage inflames,
They know how to time it,
Mrs. Sims is full of whims,
And hates our foggy climate;
Mrs. Grill is very ill,
Nothing can improve her,
Unless she sees the Tuileries,
And waddles through the Louvre.
London now is out of town, &c.

Fortune's duck to change his luck,
Spite of waddling failures,
Hither runs from London duns,
To tick with Calais tailors;
At Tivoli, 'tis who but he,
But while he apes his betters,
He finds the French have got a bench
To nab insolvent debtors!
London now is out of town, &c.

Prudence chides while Fashion guides,
We know which to mind most,
We freely bid, as Boney did,
The devil take the hindmost;
Thus we dance through giddy France
And when we find the fun done,
The piper pay, and steal away
With empty purse to London.
London now is out of town,
Who in England tarries?
Who can bear to linger there,
When all the world's in Paris?