The Poet's Eye, In A Fine Frenzy

I Could Be Well Content To Entertain The Lag-end Of My Life With Quiet Hours.

Or Art Thou But / A Dagger Of The Mind, A False Creation, / Proceeding From The Heat-oppressed Brain?

A Fellow By The Hand Of Nature Mark'd, Quoted, And Sign'd, To Do A Deed Of Shame.

And By That Destiny To Perform An Act Whereof What's Past Is Prologue, What To Come In Yours And My Discharge.

This Fellow Is Wise Enough To Play The Fool; And To Do That Well Craves A Kind Of Wit: He Must Observe Their Mood On Whom He Jests, The Quality Of Persons, And The Time, And, Like The Haggard, Check At Every Feather That Comes Before His Eye. This Is A Practise As Full Of Labour As A Wise Man's Art For Folly That He Wisely Shows Is Fit; But Wise Men, Folly-fall'n, Quite Taint Their Wit.