My book to be the book I meant to make,
And cannot judge you, for that phantom’s sake.
Yet pardon me if I have wrought too ill
In making you, that never spared the will
To shape you perfectly, and lacked the skill.
Ah, had I but the power, my book, then I
Had wrought in you some wizardry so high
That no man but had listened ...
They pass by,
And shrug—as we, who know that unto us