Shapes of Clay - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 124

AUTHORITY.

"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!