Delmore Schwartz

Albert Einstein to Archibald Macleish

I should have been a plumber fixing drains.
And mending pure white bathtubs for the great Diogenes
(who scorned all lies, all liars, and all tyrannies),

And then, perhaps, he would bestow on me — majesty!
(O modesty aside, forgive my fallen pride, O hidden
     majesty,
The lamp, the lantern, the lucid light he sought for

                 All too often — sick humanity!)