Despite your doubts, my current conviction
Calls in cadence your biases and blinds -
Hark! And hear the designs in this diction:
There's a paucity of persons whom pride,
Peddling perfect content and confidence,
Cannot conquer. To bide one's time beside
Beelzebub insults his intelligence.
Yet I yearn to test myself in mischief,
Daring the devil to break my blockades
Perhaps presumptuousness pauses, in brief,
To berate, before preventing parades.
I have no validity for vict'ry:
Great goals and grace are quite contradict'ry.