On Judgment

In prosaic verse allayed,
Southey talks of Perpetual motion---
I know not where, but at some time it existed---
As poet Laureate, he attacked free speech.
He rails against men whose verse is sublime---
Don Juan, were you not seduced
By many? My member is dry
And my morsels stolen.
Are you insane, Robert?
I've read your poetry---
I've defended it, though I know not why.
You call forth a vision and place a Tyrant in heaven?
Meanwhile, Byron writes of St. Peter's rusty keys?
You called forth that attack, 
Not I! For, I am a defender of free speech.
I am speech's solemn knight,
Saying this sacred right fends off the most fierce tyrants.
Perhaps, my love, thou art Maddok---
Making love with many women,
Fending off and aggravating freedom of speech,
A slave to kings---I am a free man!
Do I prescribe rules against free speech?
Do I say Byron is not allowed to write?
I love his verse, for it is prophecy.
Yet do the prophets err?
For many men have entered heaven.
I now understand, as the Urn with Ashes and Homilies.
I will defend Byron's freedom, and yours.
I will fight for your work to be read,
And mine, and Byron's
And Martin's, and Blake's, and Green's,
And King's, and Bradbury's,
And Rowling's, and Smith's,
And Marx's, and, so with it, also yours.
I am in love with genius of all kind---
I love radicals of all kinds.
Don Juan, I see you in my dreams.
And I see you.