Answer to Some Elegant Verses
Sent By A Friend To The Author, Complaining That One Of His Descriptions Was Rather Too Warmly Drawn
Answer to Some Elegant Verses - context Summary
Response to a Friend's Critique
Written as a direct reply to a friend’s reproach, Byron defends a previously criticized passage as the product of youthful passion rather than deliberate indecency. He apologizes in tone but argues that authentic feeling, not prudish decorum, drives his verse. He distinguishes an innocent, unimpeachable maid from a woman already seduced, claims his poetry springs from the heart, and asks that sympathetic, feeling readers judge his work rather than censorious crowds.
Read Complete AnalysesCANDOUR compels me, BECHER! to commend The verse which blends the censor with the friend. Your strong yet just reproof extorts applause From me, the heedless and imprudent cause. For this wild error which pervades my strain, I sue for pardon, must I sue In vain? The wise sometlrnes ftom Wisdom’s ways depart: Can youth then hush the dlctates of the heart? Precepts of prudence curb, but can’t control The fierce emotions of the flowing soul. When Love’s delirium haunts the glowing mind Limping Decorum lingers far behind: Vainly the dotard mends her prudish pace, Outstript and vanquish’d In the mental chase. The young, the old, have worn the chains of love; Let those they ne’er confined my lay reprove: Let those whose souls Conternn the pleasing power Their censures on the hapless victim shower. Oh! how I hate the nerveless, frigid song, The ceaseless echo of the rhyming throng, Whose labour’d lines In chilling numbers flow, To paint a pang the author ne’er can know! The artless Helicon I boast is youth; My lyre, the heart; my muse, the simple truth. Far be ‘t from me the ‘vlrgin’s stand’ to ‘taint’: Seduction’s dread is here no slight restraint. The maid whose virgin breast is void of guile, Whose wishes dimple in a modest smile, Whose downcast eye disdains the wanton leer, Firzn in her virtue’s strength, yet not severe She whom a conscious grace shall thus refine Will ne’er be ‘tainted’ by a strain of mine. But for the nymph whose premature desires Torment her bosom with unholy fires, No net to snare her willing heart is spread Sho would have fallen, though she ne’er had read. For me, I fain would please the chosen few, Whose souls, to feeling and to nature true, Will spare the childish verse, and not destroy The light effusions of a heedless boy. I seek not glory from the senseless crowd; Of fancied laurels I shall ne’er he proud; Their warrnest plaudits I would scarcely prize, Their sneers or censures I alike despise.
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