Classic Poem

" At early fifteen, " ere I mourn'd human wrongs,
My locks, pinch'd by nothing but Nature's warm tongs,
In colour well match'd with the Colchican fleece,
Unpunish'd by powder, ungarnish'd by grease,
Half-way down my back, as then worn by the young,
In many a corkscrew bewitchingly hung:
Whoever in print young Napoleon has seen,
May form a good notion of me at fifteen.

But soon, like a Visigoth marching on Rome,
The barber rush'd in with his scissors and comb;
Poor nature was presently push'd to the wall,
And shriek'd, like Belinda, to see my locks fall:
My hair scorch'd and frizz'd at the top became horrid,
Hard knocks of pomatum were dealt on my forehead,
I look'd like a linnet just caught in a cage,
So wide of its first was my head's second age!

Ere long my vex'd hair, which, pomaded and sleek,
Hung straight as John Wesley's adown either cheek,
By combs metamorphosed, assumed a new shape,
No longer a pigtail swung black at my nape:
The queue, with its ligatures spiral in twists,
Gave place to a knocker as big as my fists:
Whoever the late Major Topham has seen,
May form a good notion of me at nineteen.

Now knew I the joys the three Sisters prepare
For those who depend on the dressers of hair:
The dandies, who now " seek that bubble repute "
In the cut of a coat or the bend of a boot,
Can feebly imagine my often-felt woes,
With my watch in my hand, and my mask on my nose:
When lo! the huge knocker retired from the head,
And back came the pigtail to reign in its stead.

O caput humanum! dark dungeon of doubt,
Spite of Spurzheim, a labyrinth, inside and out,
How fleeting is all that dwells under a hat —
The late Duke of Bedford now brought in a plat!
And as both Jack and Peter abolish'd their queues,
I quickly changed mine for a well-powder'd noose:
My head, at that time, will at once re-appear
To those who have ever seen Palmer in Sneer.

No sooner had I, spite of wisdom's rebuke,
Pinn'd the faith of my head on the plat of a duke,
When sudden his grace much astonished the town
With an unpowder'd pate in its natural brown.
Away flew pomade: barbers shut up their shops:
Their harvest was ruin'd by too many crops;
While I, with a nob ev'ry morning brush'd clean,
Da-capo'd the tresses of " early fifteen.

E'er since, Fashion vainly has left me alone,
For time works the changes neglected by Ton.
My locks, erst so intimate, distant are seen,
Their visits are few, and the space far between:
Old Time, too, has made me my forelock resign;
I never seiz'd his, yet the dog has seized mine,
And seems to exclaim — " Prithee pay me my wages:
Your head has arrived at the last of its ages!