Reason, However Able, Cool At Best, Cares

Old Men, For The Most Part, Are Like Old Chronicles That Give You Dull But True Accounts Of Times Past, And Are Worth Knowing Only On That Score.

And You, My Critics! In The Chequer'd Shade, Admire New Light Thro' Holes Yourselves Have Made.

Party-spirit At Best Is But The Madness Of Many For The Gain Of A Few.

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.

Who Know But He, Whose Hand The Lightning Forms, Who Heaves Old Ocean, And Who Wings The Storms, Pours Fierce Ambition In A Caesar's Mind.