To the Duke of Dorset by Lord Byron — Read

Dorset! whose early steps with mine have stray'd, / Exploring every path of Ida's glade; / Whom still affection taught me to defend / And made me less a tyrant than a friend / Though the harsh custom of our youthful band / Bade thee obey, and gave me to command; / Thee, on whose head a few short years will shower / The gift of riches and the pride of power; / E'en now a name illustrious is thine own, / Renown'd in rank, nor far beneath the throne.

Yet, Dorset, let not this seduce thy soul / To shun fair science, or evade control, / Though passive tutors, fearful to dispraise / The titled child, whose future breath may raise, / View ducal errors with indulgent eyes, / And wink at faults they tremble to chastise / When youthful parasites, who bend the knee / To wealth, their golden idol, not to thee,– / And even in simple boyhood's opening dawn / Some slaves are found to flatter and to fawn,– / When these declare, 'that pomp alone should wait / On one by birth predestined to be great; / That books were only meant for drudging fools, / That gallant spirits scorn the common rules; ' / Believe them not; – they point the path to shame, / And seek to blast the honours of thy name.