Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 1.djvu/357

Rh If Still in Berkeley-Ballads most uncivil,

Thou wilt devote old women to the devil,

The babe unborn thy dread intent may rue:

"God help thee,", and thy readers too.

Next comes the dull disciple of thy school,

That mild apostate from poetic rule,

The simple, framer of a lay

As soft as evening in his favourite May,

Who warns his friend "to shake off toil and trouble,

And quit his books, for fear of growing double;"

Who, both by precept and example, shows

That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose;

Convincing all, by demonstration plain,

Poetic souls delight in prose insane;