SATAN CLAIMS, AT HEAVEN'S GATE, GEORGE THE THIRD. (VISION OF JUDGMENT, Stanzas 42-49.) "Look to the earth, I said, and say again: When this old, blind, mad, helpless, weak, poor worm Of ocean call'd him king: through many a storm "He came to his sceptre young; he leaves it old: How to a minion first he gave the helm; How grew upon his heart a thirst for gold, The beggar's vice, which can but overwhelm "'T is true, he was a tool from first to last Of sin and slaughter - from the Cæsar's school, More drench'd with gore, more cumber'd with the slain. "He ever warr'd with freedom and the free: Nations as men, home subjects, foreign foes, So that they utter'd the word 'Liberty ! ' Found George the Third their first opponent. Whose History was ever stain'd as his will be With national and individual woes? I grant his household abstinence; I grant "I know he was a constant consort; own "The New World shook him off: the Old yet groans Compassion for him — his tame virtues; drones Who sleep, or despots who have now forgot A lesson which shall be re-taught them, wake Upon the thrones of earth; but let them quake! "Five millions of the primitive, who hold The faith which makes ye great on earth, implored A part of that vast all they held of old, Freedom to worship—not alone your Lord, Or if too classic for his vulgar brain, He fear'd his neck to venture such a nag on, And he must needs mount nearer to the moon, Could not the blockhead ask for a balloon? 'Pedlars," ," and "Boats," and "Waggons!" Oh! ye shades Of Pope and Dryden, are we come to this? Contempt, but from the bathos' vast abyss POETICAL COMMANDMENTS. (DON JUAN, Canto i. Stanzas 204-206.) If ever I should condescend to prose, That went before; in these I shall enrich Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope; Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey; Because the first is crazed beyond all hope, The second drunk, the third so quaint and mouthy: With Crabbe it may be difficult to cope, And Campbell's Hipprocrene is somewhat drouthy: Thou shalt not steal from Samuel Rogers, nor Commit flirtation with the muse of Moore. Thou shalt not covet Mr. Sotheby's Muse, His Pegasus, nor any thing that 's his; (There's one, at least, is very fond of this); BYRON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. (DON JUAN, Canto xi. Stanzas 53-60.) JUAN knew several languages as well He might and brought them up with skill, in time To save his fame with each accomplish'd belle, Who still regretted that he did not rhyme. There wanted but this requisite to swell His qualities (with them) into sublime: However, he did pretty well, and was The coteries, and, as in Banquo's glass, Michael! but you; and you, Saint Peter! Cold In all the license of a Christian nation. "True! he allow'd them to pray God; but as And cried, You may the prisoner withdraw: THE SEX. (CHILDE HAROLD, Canto ii. Stanza 34.) NOT much he kens, I ween, of woman's breast, Pique her and soothe in turn, soon Passion crowns thy hopes. |