Classic Poem

Oh, give me your plain-dealing fellows,
Who never from honesty shrink;
Not thinking on all they should tell us,
But telling us all that they think.

Truth from man flows like wine from a bottle,
His free-spoken heart's a full cup;
But when truth sticks half-way in the throttle,
Man's worse than a bottle corked up.

Complaisance is a gingerbread creature,
Used for show, like a watch by each spark;
But truth is a golden repeater
That sets a man right in the dark.