Epigram From The French Of Rulhieres

________________________________________________
Title:     Epigram From The French Of Rulhieres
Author: Lord Byron [More Titles by Byron]

FROM THE FRENCH OF RULHIERES.[1]

IF for silver, or for gold,
You could melt ten thousand pimples
Into half a dozen dimples,
Then your face we might behold,
Looking, doubtless, much more snugly,
Yet even _then_ 'twould be damned ugly.

August 12, 1819.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] ["Would you like an epigram--a translation? It was written on some Frenchwoman, by Rulhières, I believe."--Letter to Murray, August 12, 1819, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 346.

Claude Carloman de Rulhière (1718-1791), historian, poet, and epigrammatist, was the author of _Anecdotes sur la revolution de Russie en l'anneé_ 1762, _Histoire de l'anarchie de Pologne_ (1807), etc. His epigrams are included in "Poésies Diverses," which are appended to _Les jeux de Mains_, a poem in three cantos, published in 1808, and were collected in his _Oeuvres Posthumes_, 1819; but there is no trace of the original of Byron's translation. Perhaps it is _after_ de Rulhière, who more than once epigrammatizes "Une Vieille Femme."]

[The end]
Lord Byron's poem: Epigram From The French Of Rulhieres

________________________________________________



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN