Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 1.djvu/482

440 The youth who trains to ride, or run a race,

Must bear privations with unruffled face,

Be called to labour when he thinks to dine,

And, harder still, leave wenching and his wine.

Ladies who sing, at least who sing at sight,

Have followed Music through her farthest flight;

But rhymers tell you neither more nor less,

"I've got a pretty poem for the Press;"

And that's enough; then write and print so fast;—

If Satan take the hindmost, who'd be last?

They storm the Types, they publish, one and all,

They leap the counter, and they leave the stall.

Provincial Maidens, men of high command,

Yea! Baronets have inked the bloody hand!

Cash cannot quell them; Pollio played this prank,

(Then Phœbus first found credit in a Bank!)

Not all the living only, but the dead,

Fool on, as fluent as an Orpheus' Head;

Damned all their days, they posthumously thrive,

Dug up from dust, though buried when alive!