Explore "To Belshazzar" by Lord Byron on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Belshazzar! from the banquet turn, / Nor in thy sensual fulness fall; / Behold! while yet before thee burn / The graven words, the glowing wall.
Many a despot men miscall / Crown'd and anointed from on high; / But thou, the weakest, worst of all / Is it not written, thou must die?
Go! dash the roses from thy brow - / Grey hairs but poorly wreathe with them; / Youth's garlands misbecome thee now, / More than thy very diadem, / Where thou hast tarnish'd every gem: / Then throw the worthless bauble by, / Which, worn by thee, ev'n slaves contemn; / And learn like better men to die!
Oh! early in the balance weigh'd, / And ever light of word and worth, / Whose soul expired ere youth decay'd, / And left thee but a mass of earth. / To see thee moves the scorner's mirth: / But tears in Hope's averted eye / Lament that even thou hadst birth - / Unfit to govern, live, or die.