Sonnet CLXI: "I never courted miser, fool or knave"

I never courted miser, fool or knave;
Nor held my heart up as a thing to sell
In open market, with the crier's bell
To tell the world the cheapness of the slave.
Though I have ceased to imprecate and rave
Against the horrors of the sordid hell
In which my fellows roll--as knowing well
That God's own voice has lost the power to save--
Yet in that I have kept my conscience white,
Defying meanness wheresoe'er I met
Its brazen brows in darkened counsel set,
Thou may'st regard me with a glance less light
Than these ignoble things thou would'st forget,
And hold me higher in thy lofty sight.