Explore "Epilogue" by Lord Byron on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
There's something in a stupid ass, / And something in a heavy dunce; / But never since I went to school / I heard or saw so damned a fool / As William Wordsworth is for once.
And now I've seen so great a fool / As William Wordsworth is for once; / I really wish that Peter Bell / And he who wrote it were in hell, / For writing nonsense for the nonce.
It saw the "light in ninety-eight," / Sweet babe of one and twenty years! / And then he gives it to the nation / And deems himself of Shakespeare's peers!
He gives the perfect work to light! / Will Wordsworth, if I might advise, / Content you with the praise you get / From Sir George Beaumont, Baronet, / And with your place in the Excise!
1819. First published, Philadelphia Record, December 28, 1891.