Victorian London Poems

I've been reading a book by Christopher Fowler-a fictional detective story based on Londons underground rivers and stumbled across this:-

[CENTER] [/CENTER]
[CENTER]Vauxhall Gardens [/CENTER]
[CENTER] (1661-1859)

[/CENTER]
THE ADIEU TO THE SPRING GARDENS AT VAUXHALL


THE sun now darts fainter his ray,
The meadows no longer invite:
The wood-nymphs are all tript away,
No verdure cheers sweetly the sight.
The adieu to the pastoral scene,
Where harmony charm'd with her call;
Where pleasure presided as queen,
In the echoing shades of Vaux-hall.


Such transports a soul ne'er enjoy'd,
When wafted to th' Elysian plains,
As those which my senses employ'd
Convey'd to Vaux-Hall by the Thames.
Such splendors illumin'd the grove;
My ears drank such rapturous sound;
I seem'd in inchantment to rove,
And deities gliding around.


How sweet twas to sit in the maze,
Amid the bright choirs of the fair!
Their glances diffus'd such a blaze,
I thought beauty's goddess was there;
Not Venus, whose smiles breed alarms,
And with vain allurements destroy;
But beauty, whose bashfulness charms,
And which, when possess'd, gives true joy.


The maid to whom honour is dear,
Uncensur'd might take off her glass;
And stray among beaux without fear,
No snake lurking there in the grass.
In blissful Arcadia of old,
Where mirth, wit, and innocence join'd,
The swains thus discreetly were bold,
The nymphs were thus prudently kind.


Old winter with icicles spread,
Will soon all his horrors resume;
Those past, spring must lift her fair head,
And nature exult in fresh bloom.
Thy bowers,O Vaux-Hall then shall rise,
In all the gay pride of the field;
Thy musick, shall sweetly surprize;
To thee fam'd Elysium shall yield.