Vulgar words in Byron's Poetical Works, Volume 1 (Page 1)
This book at a glance
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If David, when his toils were ended, Had heard these blockheads sing before him, To us his psalms had ne'er descended,-- In furious mood he would have tore 'em.
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[Footnote xiii: 'As speakers, each supports a rival name, Though neither seeks to damn the other's fame, Pomposus sits, unequal to decide, With youthful candour, we the palm divide.'
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My strains were never meant for you; Remorseless Rancour still reveal, And damn the verse you cannot feel.
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She need not fear the amorous rhyme, Love will not tempt her future time, For her his wings have ceased to spread, No more he flutters round her head; Her day's Meridian now is past, The clouds of Age her Sun o'ercast; To her the strain was never sent, For feeling Souls alone 'twas meant-- The verse she seized, unask'd, unbade, And damn'd, ere yet the whole was read!
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If Inspiration should her aid refuse To him who takes a Pixy for a muse, [38] 260 Yet none in lofty numbers can surpass The bard who soars to elegize an ass: So well the subject suits his noble mind, [xvii] He brays, the Laureate of the long-eared kind.
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[xxii]-- HAYLEY'S last work, and worst--until his next; 310 Whether he spin poor couplets into plays, Or damn the dead with purgatorial praise, [43] His style in youth or age is still the same, For ever feeble and for ever tame.
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Smug SYDNEY [68] too thy bitter page shall seek, And classic HALLAM, [69] much renowned for Greek; SCOTT may perchance his name and influence lend, And paltry PILLANS [70] shall traduce his friend; While gay Thalia's luckless votary, LAMB, [xxxvi] [71] Damned like the Devil--Devil-like will damn.
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Well may the nobles of our present race Watch each distortion of a NALDI'S face; Well may they smile on Italy's buffoons, And worship CATALANI's pantaloons, [95] Since their own Drama yields no fairer trace Of wit than puns, of humour than grimace.
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Of piteous ruin, which ourselves have made; In Plenty's sunshine Fortune's minions bask, Nor think of Poverty, except "en masque," [100] When for the night some lately titled ass Appears the beggar which his grandsire was, The curtain dropped, the gay Burletta o'er, The audience take their turn upon the floor: Now round the room the circling dow'gers sweep, 660 Now in loose waltz the thin-clad daughters leap; The first in lengthened line majestic swim, The last display the free unfettered limb!
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who in Granta's honours would surpass, Must mount her Pegasus, a full-grown ass; 970 A foal well worthy of her ancient Dam, Whose Helicon [149] is duller than her Cam.
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[lxx] There CLARKE, [150] still striving piteously "to please," [lxxi] Forgetting doggerel leads not to degrees, A would-be satirist, a hired Buffoon, A monthly scribbler of some low Lampoon, [151] Condemned to drudge, the meanest of the mean, And furbish falsehoods for a magazine, Devotes to scandal his congenial mind; Himself a living libel on mankind.
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"The poet considereth times past, and their poesy--makes a sudden transition to times present--is incensed against book-makers--revileth Walter Scott for cupidity and ballad-mongering, with notable remarks on Master Southey--complaineth that Master Southey had inflicted three poems, epic and otherwise, on the public--inveigheth against William Wordsworth, but laudeth Mister Coleridge and his elegy on a young ass--is disposed to vituperate Mr. Lewis--and greatly rebuketh Thomas Little (the late) and Lord Strangford--recommendeth Mr. Hayley to turn his attention to prose--and exhorteth the Moravians to glorify Mr. Grahame--sympathiseth with the Rev.
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e.' Devonshire Fairies; p. 42, we have "Lines to a Young Lady;" and, p. 52, "Lines to a Young Ass."
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Cottle) to an unfortunate poetess, whose productions, which the poor woman by no means thought vainly of, he attacked so roughly and bitterly, that I could hardly regret assailing him, even were it unjust, which it is not--for verily he is an ass."
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['Quarto Proof Sheet'] [Footnote xxxvi: 'While Cloacina's holy pontiff Lambe [3] As he himself was damned shall try to damn'.
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Rough with his elders, with his equals rash, Civil to sharpers, prodigal of cash; Constant to nought--save hazard and a whore, [xxxviii] Yet cursing both--for both have made him sore: Unread (unless since books beguile disease, The P----x becomes his passage to Degrees); Fooled, pillaged, dunned, he wastes his terms away, [xxxix] And unexpelled, perhaps, retires M.A.
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300 Napoleon's edicts no embargo lay On whores--spies--singers--wisely shipped away.
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550 But every thing has faults, nor is't unknown That harps and fiddles often lose their tone, And wayward voices, at their owner's call, With all his best endeavours, only squall; Dogs blink their covey, flints withhold the spark, And double-barrels (damn them!)
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you scorn to condescend, [ci] And will not alter what you can't defend, 790 If you will breed this Bastard of your Brains, [75] We'll have no words--I've only lost my pains.
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The tract or sermon, 'An Effectual Shove to the heavy-arse Christian', was, according to the title-page, written by William Bunyan, minister of the gospel in South Wales, and "printed for the author" in London in 1768.]]
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[Footnote 51: As Mr. Pope took the liberty of damning Homer, to whom he was under great obligations--"'And Homer (damn him!)
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calls'"--it may be presumed that anybody or anything may be damned in verse by poetical licence [I shall suppose one may damn anything else in verse with impunity.--'MS.
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[Footnote xxxviii: 'Ready to quit whatever he loved before, Constant to nought, save hazard and a whore.'
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[Footnote lxxiii: 'Are idle dogs and (damn them!)
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130 And well I know within that bastard land [10] Hath Wisdom's goddess never held command; A barren soil, where Nature's germs, confined To stern sterility, can stint the mind; Whose thistle well betrays the niggard earth, Emblem of all to whom the Land gives birth; Each genial influence nurtured to resist; A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist.
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"First on the head of him who did this deed My curse shall light,--on him and all his seed: Without one spark of intellectual fire, Be all the sons as senseless as the sire: If one with wit the parent brood disgrace, Believe him bastard of a brighter race: Still with his hireling artists let him prate, And Folly's praise repay for Wisdom's hate; 170 Long of their Patron's gusto let them tell, Whose noblest, _native_ gusto is--to sell: To sell, and make--may shame record the day!-- The State--Receiver of his pilfered prey.
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[Footnote 10: "Irish bastards," according to Sir Callaghan O'Brallaghan.
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Seductive Waltz!--though on thy native shore Even Werter's self proclaimed thee half a whore; Werter--to decent vice though much inclined, Yet warm, not wanton; dazzled, but not blind-- 150 Though gentle Genlis, [16] in her strife with Staël, Would even proscribe thee from a Paris ball; The fashion hails--from Countesses to Queens, And maids and valets waltz behind the scenes; Wide and more wide thy witching circle spreads, And turns--if nothing else--at least our _heads_; With thee even clumsy cits attempt to bounce, And cockney's practise what they can't pronounce.
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I suppose next year he will be entitled the "Virgin Mary;" if so, Lord George Gordon himself would have nothing to object to such liberal bastards of our Lady of Babylon.