He is swift to speak and slow to think, dreading his own dim conscience;
And solitude is terrible, and exile worse than death,
He cannot dwell apart, nor breathe at a distance from the crowd.
But minds of nobler stamp, and chiefest the mint-marked of heaven,
Walk independent, by themselves, freely manumitted of externals:
They carry viands with them, and need no refreshment by the way,
Nor drink of other wells than their own inner fountain.
Strange shall it seem how little such a man will lean upon the accidents of life,
He is winged and needeth not a staff; if it break, he shall not fall:
And lightly perchance doth he remember the stale trivialities around him,