See yonder bust adorned with curls;
'Tis her's, the Queen who melted pearls
Marc Antony to wheedle.
Her bark, her banquets, all are fled;
And Time, who cut her vital thread,
Has only spared her Needle.
Stern Neptune, with his triple prong,
Childe Harold, peer of peerless song,
So frolic Fortune wills it,
Stand next the Son of crazy Paul,
Who hugg'd the intrusive King of Gaul
Upon a raft at Tilsit.
"Poor vagrant child of want and toll!
The sun that warms thy native soil
Has ripen'd not thy knowledge;
'Tis obvious, from that vacant air,
Though Padua gave thee birth, thou ne'er
Didst graduate in her College.
"'Tis true thou nam'st thy motley freight;
But from what source their birth they date,
Mythology or history.
Old records, or the dreams of youth,
Dark fable, or transparent truth,
Is all to thee a mystery.
"Come tell me, Vagrant, in a breath,
Alcides' birth, his life, his death,
Recount his dozen labours:
Homer thou know'st--but of the woes
Of Troy, thou'rt ignorant as those
Dark Orange-boys, thy neighbours."
'Twas thus, erect, I deign'd to pour
My shower of lordly pity o'er
The poor Italian wittol,
As men are apt to do, to show
Their 'vantage-ground o'er those who know
Just less than their own little.
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