Explore "On a Change of Masters at a Great Public School" by Lord Byron on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Where are those honours, Ida! once your own, / When Probus fill'd your magisterial throne? / As ancient Rome, fast falling to disgrace, / Hail'd a barbarian in her Cesar's place, / So you, degenerate, share as hard a fate, / And seat Pomposus where your Probus sate.
Of narrow brain, yet of a narrower soul, / Pomposus holds you in his harsh control; / Pomposus, by no social virtue sway'd, / With florid jargon, and with vain parade; / With noisy nonsense, and new-fangled rules, / Such as were ne'er before enforced in schools / Mistaking pedantry for learning's laws, / He governs, sanction'd but by self applause; / With him the same dire fate attending Rome, / Ill-fated Ida! soon must stamp your doom; / Like her o'erthrown, for ever lost to fame, / No trace of science left you, but the name.
July 1805.