George Gordon Noel Byron

'Tis pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures;
And all are to be sold, if you consider
Their passions, and read more

'Tis pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures;
And all are to be sold, if you consider
Their passions, and are dext'rous; some by features
Are brought up, others by a warlike leader;
Some by a place--as tend their years or natures;
The most by ready cash--but all have prices,
From crowns to kicks, according to their vices.

But at sixteen the conscience rarely gnaws
So much, as when we call our old debts in
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But at sixteen the conscience rarely gnaws
So much, as when we call our old debts in
At sixty years, and draw the accounts of evil,
And find a deuced balance with the devil.

The devil hath not, in all his quiver's choice,
An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice.

The devil hath not, in all his quiver's choice,
An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice.

And these vicissitudes come best in youth;
For when they happen at a riper age,
People are read more

And these vicissitudes come best in youth;
For when they happen at a riper age,
People are apt to blame the Fates, forsooth,
And wonder Providence is not more sage.
Adversity is the first path to truth:
He who hath proved war, storm, or woman's rage,
Whether his winters be eighteen or eighty,
Has won experience which is deem'd so weighty.

By all that's good and glorious.

By all that's good and glorious.