Against Humility

I am not humble, yet I do not fear
The stern rebuke of them, who pride would smear.
Vulgar opinion is no moral law.
I bow to no one, nor am I so weak,
Others' descent before my feet to seek,
From others' groveling my might to draw.

I am- no gene, nor tribe, nor race, nor clan,
But I- the thinker, sage, creator, man,
Belonging to no era and no State.
I seek no deity to spill my blood,
No "Mother Nature" to drown me in mud,
No king nor pauper to decree my fate.

I live in space and fill it with my mind,
I live in time, its course with will to bind--
Why not, if will and skill be mine?
Why deem myself condemned, when I am not?
Why drown in tears, when I can swim in thought,
With reason happiness define?

And what, I ask, can fault those truly great?
Why should they not their futures to create,
Their grandeur to proclaim, be free?
I shan't endure those jealous others' curse,
That bad men preach to lower good to worse,
The tyrant of humility.