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Poem by 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!)



Delmore Schwartz


Delmore Schwartz's other poems:
  1. In the Naked Bed, in Plato's Cave
  2. For the One Who Would Take Man's Life in His Hands
  3. The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me
  4. Sonnet Suggested by Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Paul Vakzy, James Joyce, Et Al
  5. Phoenix Lyrics


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