Damætas [1]
In law an infant, [2] and in years a boy,
In mind a slave to every vicious joy;
From every sense of shame and virtue wean'd,
In lies an adept, in deceit a fiend;
Vers'd in hypocrisy, while yet a child;
Fickle as wind, of inclinations wild;
Woman his dupe, his heedless friend a tool;
Old in the world, though scarcely broke from school;
Damætas ran through all the maze of sin,
And found the goal, when others just begin:
Ev'n still conflicting pa**ions shake his soul,
And bid him drain the dregs of Pleasure's bowl;
But, pall'd with vice, he breaks his former chain,
And what was once his bliss appears his bane.
[Footnote 1: Moore appears to have regarded these lines as applying to Byron himself. It is, however, very unlikely that, with all his pa**ion for painting himself in the darkest colours, he would have written himself down "a hypocrite." Damætas is, probably, a satirical sketch of a friend or acquaintance. (Compare the solemn denunciation of Lord Falkland in 'English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers', lines 668-686.)]]
[Footnote 2: In law, every person is an infant who has not attained the age of twenty-one.]