Tread lightly—where the bard is laid—

He cannot mend the shoe he made;

Yet is he happy in his hole,

With verse immortal as his sole.

But still to business he held fast,

And stuck to Phoebus to the last.[12]

[12]

Then who shall say so good a fellow

Was only "leather and prunella?"

For character—he did not lack it;

And if he did, 'twere shame to "Black-it."

                                Malta, May 16, 1811. [First published, Lord Byron's Works, 1832, ix. 10.] 

FOOTNOTES:

[17] [For Joseph Blacket (1786-1810), see Letters, 1898, i. 314, note 2; see, too, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 359, note 1, and 441-443, note 2. The Epitaph is of doubtful authenticity.] 

[17]

ON MOORE'S LAST OPERATIC FARCE, OR FARCICAL OPERA.[18]

Good plays are scarce,

Good

So Moore writes farce:

The poet's fame grows brittle[i]—

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