Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 1.djvu/419

Rh Like these, thy strength may sink, in ruin hurled,

And Britain fall, the bulwark of the world.

But let me cease, and dread Cassandra's fate,

With warning ever scoffed at, till too late;

To themes less lofty still my lay confine,

And urge thy Bards to gain a name like thine.

Then, hapless Britain! be thy rulers blest,

The senate's oracles, the people's jest!

Still hear thy motley orators dispense

The flowers of rhetoric, though not of sense,

While 's colleagues hate him for his wit,

And old dame fills the place of.

Yet once again, adieu! ere this the sail

That wafts me hence is shivering in the gale;