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Title: The Charity Ball
Author: Lord Byron [
More Titles by Byron]
The Charity Ball.[1]
WHAT matter the pangs of a husband and father,
If his sorrows in exile be great or be small,
So the Pharisee's glories around her she gather,
And the saint patronises her "Charity Ball!"
What matters--a heart which, though faulty, was feeling,
Be driven to excesses which once could appal--
That the Sinner should suffer is only fair dealing,
As the Saint keeps her charity back for "the Ball!"
December 10, 1820.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] [Written on seeing the following paragraph in a newspaper: "Lady
Byron is this year the lady patroness at the annual Charity Ball, given
at the Town Hall, at Hinckley, Leicestershire...."--_Life_, p. 535.
Moore adds that "these verses [of which he only prints two stanzas] are
full of strong and indignant feeling,--every stanza concluding pointedly
with the words 'Charity Ball.'"]
[The end]
Lord Byron's poem: Charity Ball
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