Read "Don Juan" by Lord Byron online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I / Nothing so difficult as a beginning / In poesy, unless perhaps the end; / For oftentimes when Pegasus seems winning / The race, he sprains a wing, and down we tend, / Like Lucifer when hurl'd from heaven for sinning; / Our sin the same, and hard as his to mend, / Being pride, which leads the mind to soar too far, / Till our own weakness shows us what we are.
II / But Time, which brings all beings to their level, / And sharp Adversity, will teach at last / Man, -- and, as we would hope, -- perhaps the devil, / That neither of their intellects are vast: / While youth's hot wishes in our red veins revel, / We know not this -- the blood flows on too fast; / But as the torrent widens towards the ocean, / We ponder deeply on each past emotion.