THE MOCK SELF

Few friends are mine, though many wights there be

Who, meeting oft a phantasm that makes claim

To be myself, and hath my face and name,

And whose thin fraud I wink at privily,

Account this light impostor very me.

What boots it undeceive them, and proclaim

Myself myself, and whelm this cheat with shame?

I care not, so he leave my true self free,

Impose not on me also; but alas!

I too, at fault, bewildered, sometimes take

Him for myself, and far from mine own sight,

Torpid, indifferent, doth mine own self pass;

And yet anon leaps suddenly awake,

And spurns the gibbering mime into the night.