“Tis strange,-but true; for truth is always strange;Stranger than fiction: if it could be told,How much would novels gain by the exchange!How differently the world would men behold!”

“Tis strange - but true; for truth is always strange;Stranger than fiction; if it could be told,How much would novels gain by the exchange!How differently the world would men behold!How oft would vice and virtue places change!The new world would be nothing to the old,If some Columbus of the moral seasWould show mankind their souls' antipodes.”

“For truth is always strange; stranger than fiction.”

“Some have accused me of a strange designAgainst the creed and morals of this land,And trace it in this poem every line:I don't pretend that I quite understandMy meaning when I would be very fine;But the fact is that I have nothing planned...”

“Let us have wine and woman, mirth and laughter,Sermons and soda water the day after.Man, being reasonable, must get drunk;The best of life is but intoxication:Glory, the grape, love, gold, in these are sunkThe hopes of all men, and of every nation;Without their sap, how branchless were the trunkOf life's strange tree, so fruitful on occasion:But to return--Get very drunk; and whenYou wake with head-ache, you shall see what then.”

“You are 'the best of cut-throats:'--do not start;The phrase is Shakespeare's, and not misapplied:--War's a brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art,Unless her cause by Right be sanctified.If you have acted once a generous part,The World, not the World's masters, will decide,And I shall be delighted to learn who,Save you and yours, have gained by Waterloo?I am no flatterer--you've supped full of flattery:They say you like it too--'tis no great wonder:He whose whole life has been assault and battery,At last may get a little tired of thunder;And swallowing eulogy much more than satire, heMay like being praised for every lucky blunder;Called 'Saviour of the Nations'--not yet saved,And Europe's Liberator--still enslaved.I've done. Now go and dine from off the platePresented by the Prince of the Brazils,And send the sentinel before your gateA slice or two from your luxurious meals:He fought, but has not fed so well of late...”

“They accuse me--Me--the present writer ofThe present poem--of--I know not what,--A tendency to under-rate and scoffAt human power and virtue, and all that;And this they say in language rather rough.Good God! I wonder what they would be at!I say no more than has been said in Dante'sVerse, and by Solomon and by Cervantes;By Swift, by Machiavel, by Rochefoucault;By Fenelon, by Luther and by Plato;By Tillotson, and Wesley, and Rousseau,Who knew this life was not worth a potato.'Tis not their fault, nor mine, if this be so--For my part, I pretend not to be Cato,Nor even Diogenes.--We live and die, But which is best, you know no more than I.”