Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 6.djvu/641

CANTO XVII.] The sufferers—be 't in heart or intellect—

Whate'er the cause, are orphans in effect.

III.

But to return unto the stricter rule—

As far as words make rules—our common notion

Of orphan paints at once a parish school,

A half-starved babe, a wreck upon Life's ocean,

A human (what the Italians nickname) "Mule!"

A theme for Pity or some worse emotion;

Yet, if examined, it might be admitted

The wealthiest orphans are to be more pitied.

IV.

Too soon they are Parents to themselves: for what

Are Tutors, Guardians, and so forth, compared

With Nature's genial Genitors? so that

A child of Chancery, that Star-Chamber ward,

(I'll take the likeness I can first come at,)

Is like—a duckling by Dame Partlett reared,

And frights—especially if 't is a daughter,

Th' old Hen—by running headlong to the water.

V.

There is a common-place book argument,

Which glibly glides from every tongue;

When any dare a new light to present,

"If you are right, then everybody 's wrong"!

Suppose the converse of this precedent

So often urged, so loudly and so long;

"If you are wrong, then everybody 's right"!

Was ever everybody yet so quite?

VI.

Therefore I would solicit free discussion

Upon all points—no matter what, or whose—

Because as Ages upon Ages push on,

The last is apt the former to accuse