Persuasion

"Oh, he is black at heart, hollow and black!"
I  do not think these words quite fair.
Oh, I have enjoyed my share of fame and
Infamy over the course of my long life:
Messenger to Odin, first off the Ark,
A player in Macbeth and Othello.
And the Tower has been my home long
Enough to see many an Anne and a Jane.
Yet never has one interrupted me at my
Gallows-table to heckle me with such slander.
Would you blame a pig for loving filth?

Condemn a cat for craving mice?

You would not, would you?
I say, it's enough to drive one to go around
Croaking "Nevermore!"