The Poet's Apology

"Why of yourself do you for ever write,Tiring us with your dreams, your loves and woes?Your petty thoughts and passions are too slightOn which to raise a structure so verbose."My friend, when I can wander in the sunDivested of my shadow, then will ISeek from myself and mine own thoughts to run.And strive new worlds of fancy to descry.The poet, though a Shakespeare, is a man.And mirrors all men in his plastic mind,And so, if but successfully he canExpress himself, expresses all mankind:'Tis only when he's to himself untrueThat Nature and the Muse bid him adieu.