Poem by Joseph Merrick

'Tis true my form is something odd,

But blaming me is blaming God;

Could I create myself anew

I would not fail in pleasing you.

If I could reach from pole to pole

Or grasp the ocean with a span,

I would be measured by the soul;

The mind's the standard of the man.

—poem used by Joseph Merrick to end his letters, adapted from "False Greatness" by Isaac Watts