Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

   Convention is the dwarfish demon styled
   That foiled the knights in Marialva’s dome: 
   Of brains (if brains they had) he them beguiled,
   And turned a nation’s shallow joy to gloom. 
   Here Folly dashed to earth the victor’s plume,
   And Policy regained what Arms had lost: 
   For chiefs like ours in vain may laurels bloom! 
   Woe to the conquering, not the conquered host,
Since baffled Triumph droops on Lusitania’s coast.