My sportive blood -- 'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed -- No, I am that I am. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: SONNET 121. In the style of James McNeill Whistler.

’Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed

When not to be receives reproach of being,

And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed

Not by our feeling but by others' seeing.

For why should others’ false adulterate eyes

Give salutation to my sportive blood?

Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,

Which in their wills count bad that I think good?

No, I am that I am; and they that level

At my abuses reckon up their own:

I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;

By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown,

Unless this general evil they maintain:

All men are bad and in their badness reign.