Classic Poem

If you wou'd needs, for more than Man be held,
To Reason, let your Brutish Passions yield,
Which have, against your Reason, so rebell'd:
If, you wou'd more yet, your High Spirit show,
Bring it down, for your Honour more, more low;
The hardest thing, for Vainest Men, to do:
If you, to quell those, who wou'd shame you, boast,
Quell your own Passions, which, disgrace you most;
For since, you love things, which are hard to do,
That wou'd, be sure, the hardest thing for you;
If you wou'd Great, above all others seem,
Your self disgrace not, with your own Esteem;
Nor magnifie your Parts, to lessen them:
Since there's no way, to make your Merit less,
Like your degrading, Self-conceitedness;
Then let not your False Judgment justifie
Itself, by Vain Opiniatrety,
Which proves less, as you on it more rely;
But own your Judgment false, to prove it true,
To give your Understanding, best its due;
Not to bring more in question, your Good-Name.
Pretend not, to more Honour, to your Shame,
To make you, for more Honour, more to Blame;
Nor vainly Pride, but to your Betters show,
That your Inferiours more may honour you;
Low'r your High Thoughts, to raise your Credit high,
Since sought Praise, to the Seeker, most deny;
To prove your Merit, Great Mind, Virtue more,
Have more your Rebel-Passions, in your Pow'r;
Then seek not Honour, by your Vanity,
To make your Claim, but its own Self deny;
Since, always Witnesses, in their own Case,
The Truth, and Justice of their Claim, disgrace,
And lose their Merit, seeking for its Praise;
But wou'd you show, you truly merit Fame,
Your Merit rather, hon'rably disclaim;
And if you'd show, nay gain yet more Command,
Show the Pow'r, you have o'er your Passions gain'd,
Can Pride, Revenge, or Avarice, withstand;
The hardest thing, for Proud, and Great Men too,
(As more their Pow'r, and Greatness is,) to do;
Since Hero's, with more ease, can overcome
Their Foes abroad, than Bosom-Foes at home;
Their Self-Love, Pride, Fear, Rage, or Avarice,
Which can ev'n turn their Virtues into Vice;
Then sooth not, but resist your Passions more,
By less Pride, show more your Great Mind, and Pow'r;
If you the Noblest Conquest, wou'd acquire,
Quell your Ambition, to have your Desire;
Since Drunken, High-Flown, Wild Ambition is,
The Cause that it, ev'n what it seeks, does miss;
Which Man, like t'other Drunkenness, does make,
From his Brains Weakness, on him, more to take;
Than of it, he himself can well acquit,
Makes us for Action think our Brains most fit,
As they but are less capable of it;
Does turn each Hot-Head, from its own Height, round;
For looking too high, throws him on the Ground:
Ambition so, we Drunkenness may call,
Which but Exalts us, to our greater Fall;
By which, we nothing hold, for grasping all;
But lose our Selves, our Reason, and our Pow'r,
Of holding, what was in our Pow'r before,
But only for our grasping still at more:
Then Sober Drunkenness is more our Shame,
As for our Knowledge, it is more our Blame;
But as the Crime, or Folly's more, (you'll own)
As 'tis, with more Premeditation done,
He's the worst Sot, who Sober is High-flown:
And that is your Ambitious Hot-Head, who
A scouring round the World, does Sober go.