Byron in Portugal

In Sintra, “the glorious Eden”, he ate oranges,
luscious globes of refreshment
that helped him stand the heat;
conversed with monks in bad Latin
and shocked society with his pocket pistols
swearing in Portuguese.
           
Anything was better than England
so long as it was big enough
to accommodate his swagger.
           
Not so in Lisbon, which made him
unleash a stream of invective
in Childe Harold.

Fresh out of Cambridge
at twenty-one
he thought he could take on the world –
and did so – storming into the literary canon
with powder expressed in words.