Whoe'er He Be That Tells My Faults,

To Happy Convents, Bosomed Deep In Vines, Where Slumber Abbots, Purple As Their Wines.

A King May Be A Tool, A Thing Of Straw; But If He Serves To Frighten Our Enemies, And Secure Our Property, It Is Well Enough; A Scarecrow Is A Thing Of Straw, But It Protects The Corn.

And Seem To Walk On Wings, And Tread In Air.

Of Little Use, The Man You May Suppose, Who Says In Verse What Others Say In Prose; Yet Let Me Show A Poet's Of Some Weight, And (though No Soldier) Useful To The State, What Will A Child Learn Sooner Than A Song? What Better Teach A Foreigner The Tongue? What's Long Or Short, Each Accent Where To Place And Speak In Public With Some Sort Of Grace?

Placed On This Isthmus Of A Middle State, A Being Darkly Wise And Rudely Great... He Hangs Between; In Doubt To Act Or Rest; In Doubt To Deem Himself A God, Or Beast; In Doubt His Mind Or Body To Prefer; Born To Die, And Reasoning But To Err.