The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. Poetry. George Gordon Byron

      Youth, Nature, and relenting Jove,

      To keep my lamp in strongly strove;

      But Romanelli was so stout,

      He beat all three – and blew it out.

      Kind Reader! take your choice to cry or laugh;

      Here Harold lies – but where's his Epitaph?

      If such you seek, try Westminster, and view

      Ten thousand just as fit for him as you.

      Stranger! behold, interred together,

      The souls of learning and of leather.

      Poor Joe is gone, but left his all:

      You'll find his relics in a stall.

      His works were neat, and often found

      Well stitched, and with morocco bound.

      Tread lightly – where the bard is laid —

      He cannot mend the shoe he made;

      Yet is he happy in his hole,

      With verse immortal as his sole.

      But still to business he held fast,

      And stuck to Phoebus to the last.

      Then who shall say so good a fellow

      Was only "leather and prunella?"

      For character – he did not lack it;

      And if he did, 'twere shame to "Black-it."

      Good plays are scarce,

      So Moore writes farce:

      The poet's fame grows brittle19—

      We knew before

      That Little's Moore,

      But now't is Moore that's little.

      Yes! wisdom shines in all his mien,

      Which would so captivate, I ween,

      Wisdom's own goddess Pallas;

      That she'd discard her fav'rite owl,

      And take for pet a brother fowl,

      Sagacious R. C. Dallas.

      Oh well done Lord E – n! and better done R – r!23

      Britannia must prosper with councils like yours;

      Hawkesbury, Harrowby, help you to guide her,

      Whose remedy only must kill ere it cures:

      Those villains; the Weavers, are all grown refractory,

      Asking some succour for Charity's sake —

      So hang them in clusters round each Manufactory,

      That will at once put an end to mistake.24

      The rascals, perhaps, may betake them to robbing,

      The dogs to be sure have got nothing to eat —

      So if we can hang them for breaking a bobbin,

      'T will save all the Government's money and meat:

      Men are more easily made than machinery —

      Stockings fetch better prices than lives —

      Gibbets on Sherwood will heighten the scenery,

      Shewing how Commerce, how Liberty thrives!

      Justice is now in pursuit of the wretches,

      Grenadiers, Volunteers, Bow-street Police,

      Twenty-two Regiments, a score of Jack Ketches,

      Three of the Quorum and two of the Peace;

      Some Lords, to be sure, would have summoned the Judges,

      To take their opinion, but that they ne'er shall,

      For Liverpool such a concession begrudges,

      So now they're condemned by no Judges at all.

      Some folks for certain have thought it was shocking,

      When Famine appeals and when Poverty groans,

      That Life should be valued at less than a stocking,

      And breaking of frames lead to breaking of bones.

      If it should prove so, I trust, by this token,

      (And who will refuse to partake in the hope?)

      That the frames of the fools may be first to be broken,

      Who, when asked for a remedy, sent down a rope.

      The sacred song that on mine ear

      Yet vibrates from that voice of thine,

      I heard, before, from one so dear —

      'T is strange it still appears divine.

      But, oh! so sweet that look and tone

      To her and thee alike is given;

      It seemed as if for me alone

      That both had been recalled from Heaven!

      And though I never can redeem

      The vision thus endeared to me;

      I scarcely can regret my dream,

      When realised again by thee.