To Lord Thurlow

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Title:     To Lord Thurlow
Author: Lord Byron [More Titles by Byron]

1.

"_I lay my branch of laurel down_."

"_THOU_ lay thy branch of _laurel_ down!"
Why, what thou'st stole is not enow;
And, were it lawfully thine own,
Does Rogers want it most, or thou?
Keep to thyself thy withered bough,
Or send it back to Doctor Donne:[1]
Were justice done to both, I trow,
He'd have but little, and thou--none.

2.

"_Then, thus, to form Apollo's crown_."

A crown! why, twist it how you will,
Thy chaplet must be foolscap still.
When next you visit Delphi's town,
Enquire amongst your fellow-lodgers,
They'll tell you Phoebus gave his crown,
Some years before your birth, to Rogers.

3.

"_Let every other bring his own_."

When coals to Newcastle are carried,
And owls sent to Athens, as wonders,
From his spouse when the Regent's unmarried,
Or Liverpool weeps o'er his blunders;
When Tories and Whigs cease to quarrel,
When Castlereagh's wife has an heir,
Then Rogers shall ask us for laurel,
And thou shalt have plenty to spare.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] [Lord Thurlow affected an archaic style in his Sonnets and other verses. In the Preface to the second edition of _Poems, etc._, he writes, "I think that our Poetry has been continually declining since the days of Milton and Cowley ... and that the golden age of our language is in the reign of Queen Elizabeth."]

[The end]
Lord Byron's poem: To Lord Thurlow

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