Here goes, for a swim on the stream of old Time,
On those buoyant supporters, the bladders of rhyme.
--Byron
For young George Gordon, it began as a patter.
‘Twould seize, ‘twould snare the nonsense of the time.
“See the waste and dross of language, which do scatter
as the wards of good taste grow madder and madder,
whose task it be to mop the lettered slime.
Calliope came last night. I almost had ‘er.
She poked me, and then she flew back up her ladder.
Alas, thou fairest of the Muses Nine!
But I’ve quaffed too much again, and what is badder
(worse) than Salome with Baptist on a platter –
I can nor seize her locks nor make the climb!”
So he began once more the walls to bespatter
with wit which through the halls of his abbey would chime.
It chimed, as our Lord Byron’s mad hatter
peed through, floated, and dreamt on his bladder of rhyme.
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