Lord Byron (1788–1824). Poetry of Byron. 1881.
IV. SatiricSoul
H
Proud of his birth, and proud of everything;
A goodly spirit for a state divan,
A figure fit to walk before a king;
Tall, stately, form’d to lead the courtly van
On birthdays, glorious with a star and string;
The very model of a chamberlain—
And such I mean to make him when I reign.
I don’t know what, and therefore cannot tell— Which pretty women—the sweet souls!—call soul. Certes it was not body; he was well Proportion’d, as a poplar or a pole, A handsome man, that human miracle; And in each circumstance of love or war Had still preserved his perpendicular. That undefinable “Je ne sçais quoi,” Which, for what I know, may of yore have led To Homer’s Iliad, since it drew to Troy The Greek Eve, Helen, from the Spartan’s bed; Though on the whole, no doubt, the Dardan boy Was much inferior to King Menelaüs:— But thus it is some women will betray us.