What Should I Have Known Or Written

If I Am Fool, It Is, At Least, A Doubting One; And I Envy No One The Certainty Of His Self-approved Wisdom.

With Flowing Tail And Flying Mane, Wide Nostrils Never Stretched By Pain, Mouth Bloodless To Bit Or Rein, And Feet That Iron Never Shod, And Flanks Unscar'd By Spur Or Rod, A Thousand Horses - The Wild - The Free - Like Waves That Follow O'er The Sea, Came Thickly Thundering On.

Oh! Too Convincing--dangerously Dear-- In Woman's Eye The Unanswerable Tear! That Weapon Of Her Weakness She Can Wield, To Save, Subdue--at Once Her Spear And Shield.

I Am The Very Slave Of Circumstance And Impulse Borne Away With Every Breath! Misplaced Upon The Throne Misplaced In Life. I Know Not What I Could Have Been, But Feel I Am Not What I Should Be Let It End.

I Am Surrounded Here By Parsons And Methodists, But As You Will See, Not Infested With The Mania.