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- SOME say the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ is not mine,
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- Insinuating as if I would shine
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- In name and fame by the worth of another,
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- Like some made rich by robbing of their brother.
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- Or that so fond I am of being sire,
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- I’ll father bastards; or, if need require,
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- I’ll tell a lie in print to get applause.
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- I scorn it: John such dirt-heap never was,
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- Since God converted him. Let this suffice
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- To show why I my ‘Pilgrim’ patronize.
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- It came from mine own heart, so to my head,
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- And thence into my fingers trickled;
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- Then to my pen, from whence immediately
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- On paper I did dribble it daintily.
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- Manner and matter, too, was all mine own,
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- Nor was it unto any mortal known
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- Till I had done it; nor did any then
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- By books, by wits, by tongues, or hand, or pen,
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- Add five words to it, or write half a line
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- Thereof: the whole, and every whit is mine.
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- Also for THIS, thine eye is now upon,
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- The matter in this manner came from none
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- But the same heart, and head, fingers, and pen,
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- As did the other. Witness all good men;
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- For none in all the world, without a lie,
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- Can say that this is mine, excepting I
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- I write not this of my ostentation,
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- Nor ’cause I seek of men their commendation;
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- I do it to keep them from such surmise,
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- As tempt them will my name to scandalize.
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- Witness my name, if anagram’d to thee,
- The letters make – ‘Nu hony in a B.’