Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 6.djvu/36

6 To you I envy neither fruit nor boughs—

And for the fame you would engross below,

The field is universal, and allows

Scope to all such as feel the inherent glow:

Scott, Rogers, Campbell, Moore, and Crabbe, will try

'Gainst you the question with posterity.

VIII.

For me, who, wandering with pedestrian Muses,

Contend not with you on the wingéd steed,

I wish your fate may yield ye, when she chooses,

The fame you envy, and the skill you need;

And, recollect, a poet nothing loses

In giving to his brethren their full meed

Of merit—and complaint of present days

Is not the certain path to future praise.

IX.

He that reserves his laurels for posterity

(Who does not often claim the bright reversion)

Has generally no great crop to spare it, he

Being only injured by his own assertion;

And although here and there some glorious rarity

Arise like Titan from the sea's immersion,

The major part of such appellants go

To—God knows where—for no one else can know.

X.

If, fallen in evil days on evil tongues,

Milton appealed to the Avenger, Time,

If Time, the Avenger, execrates his wrongs,

And makes the word "Miltonic" mean "Sublime,"

He deigned not to belie his soul in songs,

Nor turn his very talent to a crime;

He did not loathe the Sire to laud the Son,

But closed the tyrant-hater he begun.

XI.

Think'st thou, could he—the blind Old Man—arise

Like Samuel from the grave, to freeze once more