Shapes of Clay

"Authority, authority!" they shout

Whose minds, not large enough to hold a doubt,

Some chance opinion ever entertain,

By dogma billeted upon their brain.

"Ha!" they exclaim with choreatic glee,

"Here's Dabster if you won't give in to me—

Dabster, sir, Dabster, to whom all men look

With reverence!" The fellow wrote a book.

It matters not that many another wight

Has thought more deeply, could more wisely write

On t' other side—that you yourself possess

Knowledge where Dabster did but faintly guess.

God help you if ambitious to persuade

The fools who take opinion ready-made

And "recognize authorities." Be sure

No tittle of their folly they'll abjure

For all that you can say. But write it down,

Publish and die and get a great renown—

Faith! how they'll snap it up, misread, misquote,

Swear that they had a hand in all you wrote,

And ride your fame like monkeys on a goat!