To stab my youth with desperate knives, to
This paltry age's gaudy livery,
To let each base hand filch my treasury,
To mesh my soul within a woman's hair,
And be mere Fortune's lackeyed groom, - I swearI love it not! these things are less to
Than the thin foam that frets upon the sea,
Less than the thistledown of summer
Which hath no seed: better to stand
Far from these slanderous fools who mock my
Knowing me not, better the lowliest
Fit for the meanest hind to sojourn in,
Than to go back to that hoarse cave of
Where my white soul first kissed the mouth of sin.
