I quite acknowledge allegories nice,
but envy not those who do invent them.
Too much labor and ingenuity
to create a Hippocentaur and more--
chimeras dire, gorgons and wing'd steeds
and imagined personifications.
And if I am skeptical about them,
and then would fain reduce each one by one
to the rules of strict probability,
this sort of crude philosophy takes time.
I have no leisure for such enquiries.
Shall I tell you why? I must first know me,
my self, as the Delphian inscription says.
To be about that which concerns me not
is fruitless nonsense. I bid farewell to
mere talkers their common opinions made.
I want to know if I am a monster
with passion swollen like serpent Typho,
or a gentler and simpler creature that
Nature gave a divine and lower calling.
