{
 "id": "lord-byron/dedication",
 "title": "Dedication",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Lord Byron",
 "poet_slug": "lord-byron",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Don Juan",
 "book_slug": "don-juan",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 2,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1824,
  "venue": "Don Juan (1824)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://github.com/standardebooks/lord-byron_don-juan",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18762"
  ]
 },
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  "file": "dedication.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18762",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000667686"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 136,
  "n_stanzas": 17,
  "n_parts": 17,
  "longest_line_chars": 54,
  "max_indent": 1
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  {
   "ordinal": "I",
   "title": null,
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   "ordinal": "VIII",
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   "ordinal": "XI",
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   "ordinal": "XVII",
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Bob Southey! You’re a poet⁠—Poet-laureate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And representative of all the race;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Although ’tis true that you turned out a Tory at",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Last⁠—yours has lately been a common case;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And now, my Epic Renegade! what are ye at?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With all the Lakers, in and out of place?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like “four and twenty Blackbirds in a pye;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Which pye being opened they began to sing,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(This old song and new simile holds good),",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“A dainty dish to set before the King,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or Regent, who admires such kind of food;⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But like a hawk encumbered with his hood⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Explaining Metaphysics to the nation⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I wish he would explain his Explanation.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You, Bob! are rather insolent, you know,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At being disappointed in your wish",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To supersede all warblers here below,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And be the only Blackbird in the dish;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And then you overstrain yourself, or so,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And tumble downward like the flying fish",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Gasping on deck, because you soar too high, Bob,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And fall, for lack of moisture, quite a-dry, Bob!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And Wordsworth, in a rather long “Excursion,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(I think the quarto holds five hundred pages),",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Has given a sample from the vasty version",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of his new system to perplex the sages;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis poetry-at least by his assertion,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And may appear so when the dog-star rages⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And he who understands it would be able",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To add a story to the Tower of Babel.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You⁠—Gentlemen! by dint of long seclusion",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From better company, have kept your own",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "At Keswick, and, through still continued fusion",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of one another’s minds, at last have grown",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To deem as a most logical conclusion,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That Poesy has wreaths for you alone:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "There is a narrowness in such a notion,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which makes me wish you’d change your lakes for Ocean.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I would not imitate the petty thought,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor coin my self-love to so base a vice,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For all the glory your conversion brought,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Since gold alone should not have been its price.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You have your salary; was ’t for that you wrought?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Wordsworth has his place in the Excise.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You’re shabby fellows⁠—true⁠—but poets still,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And duly seated on the Immortal Hill.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Your bays may hide the baldness of your brows⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perhaps some virtuous blushes;⁠—let them go⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To you I envy neither fruit nor boughs⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And for the fame you would engross below,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The field is universal, and allows",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Scope to all such as feel the inherent glow:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Scott, Rogers, Campbell, Moore, and Crabbe, will try",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Gainst you the question with posterity.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For me, who, wandering with pedestrian Muses,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Contend not with you on the wingèd steed,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I wish your fate may yield ye, when she chooses,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The fame you envy, and the skill you need;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And, recollect, a poet nothing loses",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In giving to his brethren their full meed",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of merit⁠—and complaint of present days",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is not the certain path to future praise.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He that reserves his laurels for posterity",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Who does not often claim the bright reversion)",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Has generally no great crop to spare it, he",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Being only injured by his own assertion;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And although here and there some glorious rarity",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Arise like Titan from the sea’s immersion,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The major part of such appellants go",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To⁠—God knows where⁠—for no one else can know.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "If, fallen in evil days on evil tongues,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Milton appealed to the Avenger, Time,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "If Time, the Avenger, execrates his wrongs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And makes the word “Miltonic” mean “Sublime,”",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He deigned not to belie his soul in songs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor turn his very talent to a crime;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He did not loathe the Sire to laud the Son,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But closed the tyrant-hater he begun.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Think’st thou, could he⁠—the blind Old Man⁠—arise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like Samuel from the grave, to freeze once more",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The blood of monarchs with his prophecies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or be alive again⁠—again all hoar",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With time and trials, and those helpless eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And heartless daughters⁠—worn⁠—and pale⁠—and poor;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Would he adore a sultan? he obey",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The intellectual eunuch Castlereagh?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Cold-blooded, smooth-faced, placid miscreant!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dabbling its sleek young hands in Erin’s gore,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And thus for wider carnage taught to pant,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Transferred to gorge upon a sister shore,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The vulgarest tool that Tyranny could want,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With just enough of talent, and no more,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To lengthen fetters by another fixed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And offer poison long already mixed.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "An orator of such set trash of phrase",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ineffably⁠—legitimately vile,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That even its grossest flatterers dare not praise,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor foes⁠—all nations⁠—condescend to smile⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor even a sprightly blunder’s spark can blaze",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From that Ixion grindstone’s ceaseless toil,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That turns and turns to give the world a notion",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of endless torments and perpetual motion.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A bungler even in its disgusting trade,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And botching, patching, leaving still behind",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Something of which its masters are afraid⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "States to be curbed, and thoughts to be confined,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Conspiracy or Congress to be made⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cobbling at manacles for all mankind⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A tinkering slave-maker, who mends old chains,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With God and Man’s abhorrence for its gains.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "If we may judge of matter by the mind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Emasculated to the marrow It",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Hath but two objects, how to serve, and bind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Deeming the chain it wears even men may fit,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Eutropius of its many masters,⁠—blind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To worth as freedom, wisdom as to wit,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Fearless⁠—because no feeling dwells in ice,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its very courage stagnates to a vice.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Where shall I turn me not to view its bonds,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For I will never feel them?⁠—Italy!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy late reviving Roman soul desponds",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beneath the lie this State-thing breathed o’er thee⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy clanking chain, and Erin’s yet green wounds,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have voices⁠—tongues to cry aloud for me.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Europe has slaves⁠—allies⁠—kings⁠—armies still⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Southey lives to sing them very ill.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Meantime, Sir Laureate, I proceed to dedicate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In honest simple verse, this song to you.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And, if in flattering strains I do not predicate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis that I still retain my “buff and blue;”",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "My politics as yet are all to educate:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Apostasy’s so fashionable, too,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To keep one creed’s a task grown quite Herculean;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is it not so, my Tory, ultra-Julian?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}