Don Juan (Canto I, Opening) by George Gordon, Lord Byron

Form: Ottava Rima | Year: 1819

Full Text

FRAGMENT ON THE BACK OF THE MS. OF CANTO I.

I WOULD to Heaven that I were so much clay,
  As I am blood, bone, marrow, passion, feeling--
Because at least the past were passed away,
  And for the future--(but I write this reeling,
Having got drunk exceedingly to-day,
  So that I seem to stand upon the ceiling)
I say--the future is a serious matter--
And so--for God's sake--hock and soda-water!

DEDICATION.

BOB SOUTHEY! You're a poet--Poet-laureate,
  And representative of all the race;
Although 't is true that you turned out a Tory at
  Last,--yours has lately been a common case;
And now, my Epic Renegade! what are ye at?
  With all the Lakers, in and out of place?
A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye
Like "four and twenty Blackbirds in a pye;

"Which pye being opened they began to sing,"
  (This old song and new simile holds good),
"A dainty dish to set before the King,"
  Or Regent, who admires such kind of food;--
And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing,
  But like a hawk encumbered with his hood,--
Explaining Metaphysics to the nation--
I wish he would explain his Explanation.

You, Bob! are rather insolent, you know,
  At being disappointed in your wish
To supersede all warblers here below,
  And be the only Blackbird in the dish;
And then you overstrain yourself, or so,
  And tumble downward like the flying fish
Gasping on deck, because you soar too high, Bob,
And fall, for lack of moisture, quite a-dry, Bob!

And Wordsworth, in a rather long "Excursion,"
  (I think the quarto holds five hundred pages),
Has given a sample from the vasty version
  Of his new system to perplex the sages;
'T is poetry-at least by his assertion,
  And may appear so when the dog-star rages--
And he who understands it would be able
To add a story to the Tower of Babel.

You--Gentlemen! by dint of long seclusion
  From better company, have kept your own
At Keswick, and, through still continued fusion
  Of one another's minds, at last have grown
To deem as a most logical conclusion,
  That Poesy has wreaths for you alone:
There is a narrowness in such a notion,
Which makes me wish you'd change your lakes for Ocean.

I would not imitate the petty thought,
  Nor coin my self-love to so base a vice,
For all the glory your conversion brought,
  Since gold alone should not have been its price.
You have your salary; was 't for that you wrought?
  And Wordsworth has his place in the Excise.

Overview

This opening of Don Juan is Byron at his most dangerous: drunk, funny, and firing at real targets with real names. The "Fragment" sets the tone immediately—Byron claims to be writing while intoxicated, standing on the ceiling, and the poem never fully sobers up. What looks like chaos is actually precision. The ottava rima stanza (ABABABCC) gives him a built-in punchline every eight lines, and he uses it to demolish Robert Southey, William Wordsworth, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge—the Lake Poets who had abandoned their youthful radicalism for government pensions and conservative politics. The Dedication is a literary declaration of war. Byron calls Southey a "Tory" turncoat, mocks Wordsworth's interminable Excursion (all five hundred pages of it), and delivers the perfect insult to Coleridge: "I wish he would explain his Explanation." These aren't abstract literary disagreements. Byron genuinely despised what he saw as intellectual corruption—poets who sold their revolutionary ideals for salaries and royal favor. The nursery rhyme comparison ("four and twenty Blackbirds in a pye") reduces the Lake Poets to a children's song, which is exactly the level of seriousness Byron thinks they deserve. What makes this opening remarkable is how Byron turns personal attack into artistic principle. His target isn't bad poetry—it's dishonesty. The Lake Poets pretend to be visionaries while cashing government checks. Byron, by contrast, announces his own drunkenness in the first stanza. He may be reeling, but at least he's not pretending otherwise. The poem argues that authenticity matters more than respectability, and that real poetry requires the ocean, not the lake.

Line-by-Line Analysis

Lines 1-8

The Fragment opens with a death wish wrapped in a joke. "I WOULD to Heaven that I were so much clay"—meaning dead, inert, free of feeling. But then Byron lists what he actually is: "blood, bone, marrow, passion, feeling"—a catalogue of raw physicality. The parenthetical about being drunk and standing on the ceiling undercuts any self-pity before it can settle. The final couplet snaps the stanza shut with bathos: after grand talk of the future being "a serious matter," he calls for "hock and soda-water"—a hangover cure. Byron refuses to be serious for more than six lines at a time.

Lines 9-16

Byron addresses Southey directly—"BOB"—with mock-respect. He's a "poet" and a "Poet-laureate," but the real charge comes fast: Southey "turned out a Tory at / Last." The enjambment on "Tory at / Last" forces a comic pause, making the political betrayal land like a punchline. "Epic Renegade" is a masterful compound insult—Southey writes epics, and he's a renegade from his former radicalism. Then the nursery rhyme: the Lake Poets become "four and twenty Blackbirds in a pye," suggesting they're interchangeable, ornamental, and baked into the establishment.

Lines 17-24

The nursery rhyme continues—the blackbirds "began to sing" for the King (or Regent), a pointed image of poets performing for royal patronage. Then Byron pivots to Coleridge, who has "taken wing" like a hawk, but one "encumbered with his hood"—blinded by his own abstraction. The devastating couplet: Coleridge explains "Metaphysics to the nation" but Byron wishes "he would explain his Explanation." This is one of the great one-liner takedowns in English poetry—it says Coleridge is incomprehensible and knows it.

Lines 25-32

Back to "Bob" with escalating mockery. Southey wanted to "supersede all warblers" and "be the only Blackbird in the dish"—Byron accuses him of naked ambition wrapped in poetic pretension. The flying fish simile is brilliantly precise: Southey "soar[s] too high" and falls, "Gasping on deck" for lack of moisture. The repeated "Bob" at the end of consecutive lines ("too high, Bob" / "a-dry, Bob") turns the Poet Laureate's name into a comic refrain, stripping away all dignity.

Lines 33-40

Wordsworth's turn. Byron zeroes in on The Excursion—"I think the quarto holds five hundred pages"—with the parenthetical aside performing the tedium it describes. The word "vasty" mocks Wordsworth's inflated diction. The insult sharpens: understanding Wordsworth's "new system" would qualify you to "add a story to the Tower of Babel"—it's not wisdom, it's confusion multiplied. The dog-star line suggests Wordsworth's poetry might seem like poetry only during the madness of summer heat.

Lines 41-48

Byron addresses all the Lake Poets collectively as "Gentlemen" with pointed irony. Their "long seclusion" at Keswick has made them provincial and self-reinforcing—"through still continued fusion / Of one another's minds" they've developed a closed system. They believe "Poesy has wreaths for you alone," which Byron calls a "narrowness." His prescription: "change your lakes for Ocean"—stop being parochial and engage with the wider world. This is the artistic argument beneath all the personal attacks: real poetry requires breadth of experience.

Lines 49-54

The final stanza drops the comedy for genuine contempt. Byron refuses to "imitate the petty thought" or debase his self-love for "glory" bought at the price of political conversion. "You have your salary; was 't for that you wrought?" is a direct accusation: you sold your art for money. The closing shot at Wordsworth—"his place in the Excise"—refers to Wordsworth's government appointment as Distributor of Stamps, reducing the great nature poet to a tax collector. It's Byron's killing blow: the Romantics became bureaucrats.

Themes

Poetic integrity vs. political corruption
Satire as moral weapon
The artist's relationship to power and patronage
Authenticity vs. pretension
Literary rivalry and the anxiety of influence
Provincial narrowness vs. cosmopolitan breadth
The comedy of self-awareness

Literary Devices

Bathos: "the future is a serious matter-- / And so--for God's sake--hock and soda-water!" — Byron deflates his own grand statement about the future with a call for a hangover remedy. This deliberate anticlimax is his signature move—undercutting seriousness before it can become pomposity.
Mock-Heroic Address: "BOB SOUTHEY! You're a poet--Poet-laureate, / And representative of all the race" — Byron addresses the Poet Laureate with the familiarity of a drinking companion ("Bob"), simultaneously acknowledging and mocking his official status. The formal title collides with the nickname.
Allusion (Nursery Rhyme): "four and twenty Blackbirds in a pye" — Comparing the Lake Poets to the blackbirds in "Sing a Song of Sixpence" reduces them to a children's game—interchangeable, trivial, and performing on command for royalty.
Ottava Rima Punchline: "Explaining Metaphysics to the nation-- / I wish he would explain his Explanation." — The ottava rima's closing couplet (CC after ABABAB) is engineered for comic payoff. Byron loads the sixth line with setup and uses the couplet to deliver the joke with epigrammatic snap.
Extended Simile: "like a hawk encumbered with his hood" — Coleridge as a hooded hawk—a bird of prey that should see clearly but is blinded by its own covering. The image suggests intellectual power made useless by self-imposed obscurity.
Rhetorical Question: "You have your salary; was 't for that you wrought?" — Byron frames the accusation of selling out as a question, which makes it more damning—it forces the reader to answer, and there is only one answer.

Historical Context

Byron wrote Don Juan beginning in 1818, and the poem was published in installments from 1819 to 1824. The Dedication was suppressed by Byron's publisher John Murray and not printed until after Byron's death—the attacks on living poets were considered too dangerous. Robert Southey was Poet Laureate from 1813, having abandoned his earlier radical politics. Wordsworth held the government sinecure of Distributor of Stamps for Westmorland from 1813. Coleridge had moved from revolutionary sympathizer to conservative Anglican philosopher. Byron saw all three as traitors to the ideals of the French Revolution and to poetry itself. The larger poem—over 16,000 lines, unfinished at Byron's death—is a picaresque comic epic that satirizes everything from war to marriage to English hypocrisy.