Not great men, even when they're good:

The good man whom the Lord makes great,

By some disgrace of chance or blood He fails not to humiliate:

Not these: but souls, found here and there,

Oases in our waste of sin, Where every thing is well and fair, And God remits his discipline; Whose sweet subdual of the world The worldling scarce can recognize,

And ridicule against it hurled, Drops with a broken sting, and dies;

Who nobly, if they cannot know Whether a 'scutcheon's dubious field

Carries a falcon or a crow,

Fancy a falcon on the shield; Yet ever careful not to hurt

God's honor, who creates success, Their praise of even the best desert Is but to have presumed no less; And should their own life plaudits bring,

They're simply vexed at heart that such

An easy, yea, delightful thing Should move the minds of men so much.

They live by law, not like the fool,

But like the bard, who freely sings In strictest bonds of rhyme and rule, And finds in them not bonds, but