Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/250

212 Not that he had no cares to vex;

He loved the Muses and the Sex;

And sometimes these so froward are,

They made him wish himself at war;

But soon his wrath being o'er, he took

Another mistress—or new book:

And then he gave prodigious fêtes—

All Warsaw gathered round his gates

To gaze upon his splendid court,

And dames, and chiefs, of princely port.

He was the Polish Solomon,

So sung his poets, all but one,

Who, being unpensioned, made a satire,

And boasted that he could not flatter.

It was a court of jousts and mimes,

Where every courtier tried at rhymes;

Even I for once produced some verses,

And signed my odes 'Despairing Thyrsis.'

There was a certain Palatine,

A Count of far and high descent,

Rich as a salt or silver mine;

And he was proud, ye may divine,

As if from Heaven he had been sent;

He had such wealth in blood and ore

As few could match beneath the throne;

And he would gaze upon his store,

And o'er his pedigree would pore,

Until by some confusion led,

Which almost looked like want of head,

He thought their merits were his own.

His wife was not of this opinion;

His junior she by thirty years,