Short Poems

[To William Harness, December 6, 1811. Parodying a stanza in Southey's Queen Orraca and the Five Martyrs of Morocco .]

What news, what news? Queen Orraca,
What news of scribblers five?
S — , W — , C — , L — d, and L — e?
All damn'd, though yet alive.

[To Francis Hodgson, September 13, 1811. Alluding to Moore's M. P. or the Bluestocking .]

Good plays are scarce,
So Moore writes Farce ;
Is Fame like his so brittle?
We knew before
That " Little's' Moore ,
But now 't is Moore that 's Little .

[To Francis Hodgson, October 3, 1810. An " epitaph." Romanelli was an Albanian physician who physicked Byron at Patras.]
Youth , Nature, and relenting Jove,
To keep my lamp in strongly strove:
But Romanelli was so stout,
He beat all three — and blew it out .

[To Henry Drury, June 17, 1810. A " translation" of Euripides, Medea , 1 7. Written on the summit of the Cyanean Symplegades.]

O H how I wish that an embargo
Had kept in port the good ship Argo!
Who, still unlaunch'd from Grecian docks,
Had never pass'd the Azure rocks;
But now I fear her trip will be a
Damn'd business for my Miss Medea, etc., etc.

Chariot so strict chariot
Riding the cold stars to death
You are an 18th Century Lady

For, the easy sphincters
Of your eye quiver a while
Then are still.

Have mercy, Lord!

Po' an' black
An' humble an' lonesome
An' a sinner in yo' sight.

Have mercy, Lord!

Sulpicia ad Cerinthum. — Lib. 4.
Cruel Cerinthus! does the fell disease
Which racks my breast your fickle bosom please?
Alas! I wish'd but to o'ercome the pain,
That I might live for love and you again:
But now I scarcely shall bewail my fate;
By death alone I can avoid your hate.

If you from spoil of th' old world's farthest end
To the new world your kindled valours bend,
What brave examples then do prove it true
That one thing's end doth still begin a new.

meet mr universe (who clean

and jerked 300 lbs) i mean
observe his these regard his that(sh)

who made the world's best one hand snatch

I am unable, yonder beggar cries,
To stand, or move; if he say true, he lies .