#27 - Impressed by George

Fay Roberts delivers (at last) a précis of Lord Byron’s maiden speech at the House of Lords in defence of the Luddites:

The fresh, young Lord pleads for silence,
claims his constituents framed
for well-intentioned violence;

scorning the wicked reliance
on machines which they’ve defamed,
the fresh, young Lord pleads for silence.

At length he lauds their defiance
with all the fervour for which he’s famed
(and well-intentioned violence).

Others might dismiss this poetic license -
the ones whose greed he’s roundly declaimed -
the fresh, young Lord pleads for silence

while bewailing the march of science,
regretting that society seems chained
to well-intentioned violence.

And yet, without a certain reliance
on presses, his words might never have been saved;
the fresh, young Lord pleads for silence
for well-intentioned violence.

Machine-breakers; image from the James Fell (he of Sweary History fame) article about Luddites