This tongue-in-cheek literary criticism builds to a very funny – and pointed – finish, namely the 1816 publication of Lady Caroline Lamb’s Glenarvon, written after her infamous affair with Byron ended. The character Glenarvon was her thinly veiled portrait of Byron.
Byron wrote the poem on 25 March 1817. The poem implies his reaction to her novel was primarily bemusement. But in private he was angry and appalled.
The poem references the following works – Coleridge’s Christabel; W.L. Bowles’s The Missionary of the Andes; H. Gally Knight’s Ilderim; Margaret Holford’s Margaret; J.W. Webster’s Waterloo; and Wordsworth’s The White Doe of Rylstone.
I read the “Christabel;”
Very well:
I read the “Missionary;”
Pretty – very;
I tried at “Ilderim;”
Ahem!
I read a sheet of Marg’ret of Anjou;”
Can you?;
I turned a page of Webster’s “Waterloo;”
Pooh! Pooh!
I looked at Wordsworth’s milk-white “Rylstone Doe;”
Hillo!
I read “Glenarvon,” too, by Caro Lamb;
God damn!
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Link will appear as Hanson, Marilee. "Versicles" https://englishhistory.net/byron/poems/versicles/, April 19, 2015