And hold a phantom rule; then pass and be
A little dust in a forgotten heap.
Nay, ’tis not worth the blacking of a soul,
The letting of a single human life,
The fouling o’er of youthful memory.
And I am now this self-contemnéd thing,
A man of truest sorrows who descended
From out the pedestal of nobler dreams,
And used the subtle intrigues of this world
To climb this pyramid of human weakness.