We Forget Cruelty And Past Betrayal, Heedless

I Have Done Many Impious Things--no Great Ruler Can Do Otherwise. I Have Put The Good Of The Empire Before All Human Considerations. To Keep The Empire Free From Factions I Have Had To Commit Many Crimes.

Fact Is Not Truth, But A Poet Who Wilfully Defies Fact Cannot Achieve Truth.

If I Were A Young Man With My Bones Full Of Marrow, Oh, If I Were A Bold Young Man Straight As An Arrow, I'd Store Up No Virtue For Heaven's Distant Plain, I'd Live At Ease As I Did Please And Sin Once Again.

Every Fairy Child May Keep Two Strong Ponies And Ten Sheep; All Have Houses, Each His Own, Built Of Brick Or Granite Stone; They Live On Cherries, They Run Wild I'd Love To Be A Fairy's Child.

There's A Cool Web Of Language Winds Us In, Retreat From Too Much Joy Or Too Much Fear: We Grow Sea-green At Last And Coldly Die In Brininess And Volubility.