'What say I?'--not a syllable further in prose; <br />I'm your man 'of all measures,' dear Tom,--so here goes! <br />Here goes, for a swim on the stream of old Time, <br />On those buoyant supporters, the bladders of rhyme. <br />If our weight breaks them down, and we sink in the flood, <br />We are smother'd, at least, in respectable mud, <br />Where the Divers of Bathos lie drown'd in a heap, <br />And Southey's last Pæan has pillow'd his sleep; <br />That Felo de se,' who, half drunk with his malmsey, <br />Walk'd out of his depth and was lost in a calm sea, <br />Singing 'Glory to God' in a spick and span stanza, <br />The like (since Tom Sternhold was choked) never man saw. <br /> <br />The papers have told you, no doubt, of the fusses, <br />The fetes, and the gapings to get at these Russes,-- <br />Of his Majesty's suite, up from coachman to Hetman, <br />And what dignity decks the flat face of the great man. <br />I saw him, last week, at two balls and a party,-- <br />For a prince, his demeanour was rather too hearty. <br />You know we are used to quite different graces, <br /> <br />The Czar's look, I own, was much brighter and brisker, <br />But then he is sadly deficient in whisker; <br />And wore but a starless blue coat, and in kersey-- <br />Mere breeches whisk'd round, in a waltz with the Jersey, <br />Who lovely as ever, seem'd just as delighted <br />With Majesty's presence as those she invited. <br /> <br />June 1814.<br /><br />George Gordon Byron<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/fragment-of-an-epistle-to-thomas-moore/
