George Gordon, Lord Byron

from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1816)

I have not loved the World, nor the World me;
I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bowed
To its idolatries a patient knee,
Nor coined my cheek to smiles, -- nor cried aloud
In worship of an echo: in the crowd
They could not deem me one of such -- I stood
Among them, but not of them -- in a shroud
Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could,
Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued.

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