Selected Works of George Gordon, Lord Byron

     LXXVI
Where is Napoleon the Grand? God knows.
  Where little Castlereagh? The devil can tell:
Where Grattan, Curran, Sheridan, all those
  Who bound the bar or senate in their spell?
Where is the unhappy Queen, with all her woes?
  And where the Daughter, whom the Isles loved well?
Where are those martyr'd saints the Five per Cents?
And where--oh, where the devil are the rents?

     LXXVII
Where 's Brummel? Dish'd. Where 's Long Pole Wellesley? Diddled.
  Where 's Whitbread? Romilly? Where 's George the Third?
Where is his will? (That 's not so soon unriddled.)
  And where is 'Fum' the Fourth, our 'royal bird?'
Gone down, it seems, to Scotland to be fiddled
  Unto by Sawney's violin, we have heard:
'Caw me, caw thee'--for six months hath been hatching
This scene of royal itch and loyal scratching.

     LXXVIII
Where is Lord This? And where my Lady That?
  The Honourable Mistresses and Misses?
Some laid aside like an old Opera hat,
  Married, unmarried, and remarried (this is
An evolution oft performed of late).
  Where are the Dublin shouts--and London hisses?
Where are the Grenvilles? Turn'd as usual. Where
My friends the Whigs? Exactly where they were.

     LXXIX
Where are the Lady Carolines and Franceses?
  Divorced or doing thereanent. Ye annals
So brilliant, where the list of routs and dances is,--
  Thou Morning Post, sole record of the panels
Broken in carriages, and all the phantasies
  Of fashion,--say what streams now fill those channels?
Some die, some fly, some languish on the Continent,
Because the times have hardly left them one tenant.

     LXXX
Some who once set their caps at cautious dukes,
  Have taken up at length with younger brothers:
Some heiresses have bit at sharpers' hooks:
  Some maids have been made wives, some merely mothers;
Others have lost their fresh and fairy looks:
  In short, the list of alterations bothers.
There 's little strange in this, but something strange is
The unusual quickness of these common changes.

     LXXXI
Talk not of seventy years as age; in seven
  I have seen more changes, down from monarchs to
The humblest individual under heaven,
  Than might suffice a moderate century through.
I knew that nought was lasting, but now even
  Change grows too changeable, without being new:
Nought 's permanent among the human race,
Except the Whigs not getting into place.

     LXXXII
I have seen Napoleon, who seem'd quite a Jupiter,
  Shrink to a Saturn. I have seen a Duke
(No matter which) turn politician stupider,
  If that can well be, than his wooden look.
But it is time that I should hoist my 'blue Peter,'
  And sail for a new theme:--I have seen--and shook
To see it--the king hiss'd, and then caress'd;
But don't pretend to settle which was best.

     LXXXIII
I have seen the Landholders without a rap--
  I have seen Joanna Southcote--I have seen--
The House of Commons turn'd to a tax-trap--
  I have seen that sad affair of the late Queen--
I have seen crowns worn instead of a fool's cap--
  I have seen a Congress doing all that 's mean--
I have seen some nations like o'erloaded asses
Kick off their burthens, meaning the high classes.

     LXXXIV
I have seen small poets, and great prosers, and
  Interminable--not eternal--speakers--
I have seen the funds at war with house and land--
  I have seen the country gentlemen turn squeakers--
I have seen the people ridden o'er like sand
  By slaves on horseback--I have seen malt liquors
Exchanged for 'thin potations' by John Bull--
I have seen John half detect himself a fool.--

     LXXXV
But 'carpe diem,' Juan, 'carpe, carpe!'
  To-morrow sees another race as gay
And transient, and devour'd by the same harpy.
  'Life 's a poor player,'--then 'play out the play,
Ye villains!' above all keep a sharp eye
  Much less on what you do than what you say:
Be hypocritical, be cautious, be
Not what you seem, but always what you see.

     LXXXVI
But how shall I relate in other cantos
  Of what befell our hero in the land,
Which 't is the common cry and lie to vaunt as
  A moral country? But I hold my hand--
For I disdain to write an Atalantis;
  But 't is as well at once to understand,
You are not a moral people, and you know it
Without the aid of too sincere a poet.

     LXXXVII
What Juan saw and underwent shall be
  My topic, with of course the due restriction
Which is required by proper courtesy;
  And recollect the work is only fiction,
And that I sing of neither mine nor me,
  Though every scribe, in some slight turn of diction,
Will hint allusions never meant. Ne'er doubt
This--when I speak, I don't hint, but speak out.

     LXXXVIII
Whether he married with the third or fourth
  Offspring of some sage husband-hunting countess,
Or whether with some virgin of more worth
  (I mean in Fortune's matrimonial bounties)
He took to regularly peopling Earth,
  Of which your lawful awful wedlock fount is,--
Or whether he was taken in for damages,
For being too excursive in his homages,--

     LXXXIX
Is yet within the unread events of time.
  Thus far, go forth, thou lay, which I will back
Against the same given quantity of rhyme,
  For being as much the subject of attack
As ever yet was any work sublime,
  By those who love to say that white is black.
So much the better!--I may stand alone,
But would not change my free thoughts for a throne.