I am a courtier grave and serious Who is about to kiss your hand: Try to combine a pose imperious With a demeanour nobly bland.

When every blessed thing you have is made of silver, or of gold, you long for simple pewter.

Posterity will know as little of me as I know of posterity.

The idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, All centuries but this, and every country but his own.

Wherever valor true is found, true modesty will there abound.

To sit in solemn silence on a dull, dark dock in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock from a cheap and chippy chopper on a big, black block.

In short, whoever you may be, To this conclusion you'll agree, When every one is somebodee, Then no one's anybody!