Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 1.djvu/395

Rh Why should we call them from their dark abode,

In broad St. Giles's or in Tottenham-Road?

Or (since some men of fashion nobly dare

To scrawl in verse) from Bond-street or the Square?

If things of Ton their harmless lays indite,

Most wisely doomed to shun the public sight,

What harm? in spite of every critic elf,

Sir T. may read his stanzas to himself;

still his strength in couplets try,

And live in prologues, though his dramas die.

Lords too are Bards: such things at times befall,

And 'tis some praise in Peers to write at all.

Yet, did or Taste or Reason sway the times,

Ah! who would take their titles with their rhymes?