1802'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,

1803When not to be, receives reproach of being,

1804And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed

1805Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing.

1806For why should others' false adulterate eyes

1807Give salutation to my sportive blood?

1808Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,

1809Which in their wills count bad what I think good?

1810No, I am that I am, and they that level

1811At my abuses, reckon up their own;

1812I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel.

1813By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown,

1814 Unless this general evil they maintain:

1815 All men are bad, and in their badness reign.

1817Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain

1818Full charactered with lasting memory,

1819Which shall above that idle rank remain

1820Beyond all date, even to eternity--

1821Or at the least, so long as brain and heart

1822Have faculty by nature to subsist;

1823Till each to razed oblivion yield his part

1824Of thee, thy record never can be missed.

1825That poor retention could not so much hold,

1826Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;

1827Therefore to give them from me was I bold,

1828To trust those tables that receive thee more.

1829 To keep an adjunct to remember thee

1830 Were to import forgetfulness in me.

1832No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change.

1833Thy pyramids, built up with newer might,

1834To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;

1835They are but dressings of a former sight.

1836Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire

1837What thou dost foist upon us that is old,

1838And rather make them born to our desire

1839Than think that we before have heard them told.

1840Thy registers and thee I both defy,

1841Not wond'ring at the present, nor the past,

1842For thy records, and what we see doth lie,

1843Made more or less by thy continual haste:

1844 This I do vow, and this shall ever be,

1845 I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.