Read "Don Juan" by Lord Byron online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I / If from great nature's or our own abyss / Of thought we could but snatch a certainty, / Perhaps mankind might find the path they miss -- / But then 't would spoil much good philosophy. / One system eats another up, and this / Much as old Saturn ate his progeny; / For when his pious consort gave him stones / In lieu of sons, of these he made no bones.
II / But System doth reverse the Titan's breakfast, / And eats her parents, albeit the digestion / Is difficult. Pray tell me, can you make fast, / After due search, your faith to any question? / Look back o'er ages, ere unto the stake fast / You bind yourself, and call some mode the best one. / Nothing more true than not to trust your senses; / And yet what are your other evidences?