An Honest Man's The Noblest Work Of

Why Did I Write? Whose Sin To Me Unknown Dipt Me In Ink, My Parents', Or My Own? As Yet A Child, Nor Yet A Fool To Fame, I Lisp'd In Numbers, For The Numbers Came.

Is It, In Heav'n, A Crime To Love Too Well? To Bear Too Tender Or Too Firm A Heart, To Act A Lover's Or A Roman's Part? Is There No Bright Reversion In The Sky For Those Who Greatly Think, Or Bravely Die?

Heav'n From All Creatures Hides The Book Of Fate, All But The Page Prescribed, Their Present State: From Brutes What Men, From Men What Spirits Know: Or Who Could Suffer Being Here Below?

To Pardon Those Absurdities In Ourselves Which We Cannot Suffer In Others Is Neither Better Nor Worse Than To Be More Willing To Be Fools Ourselves Than To Have Others So.

But See, Orion Sheds Unwholesome Dews; Arise, The Pines A Noxious Shade Diffuse; Sharp Boreas Blows, And Nature Feels Decay, Time Conquers All, And We Must Time Obey.