Lord Byron - The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 3 (Verses Found In A Summer-House At Hales-Owen) lyrics

Verses Found In A Summer-House At Hales-Owen[46] When Dryden's fool, "unknowing what he sought," His hours in whistling spent, "for want of thought,"[47] This guiltless oaf his vacancy of sense Supplied, and amply too, by innocence: Did modern swains, possessed of Cymon's powers, In Cymon's manner waste their leisure hours, Th' offended guests would not, with blushing, see These fair green walks disgraced by infamy. Severe the fate of modern fools, alas! When vice and folly mark them as they pa**. Like noxious reptiles o'er the whitened wall, The filth they leave still points out where they crawl. [First published, 1832, vol. xvii.] Footnotes [46] {59} [The Leasowes, the residence of the poet Shenstone, is near the village of Halesowen, in Shropshire.] [47] [See Dryden's Cymon and Iphigenia, lines 84, 85.]