Few friends are mine, though many wights there be <br />Who, meeting oft a phantasm that makes claim <br />To be myself, and hath my face and name, <br />And whose thin fraud I wink at privily, <br />Account this light impostor very me. <br />What boots it undeceive them, and proclaim <br />Myself myself, and whelm this cheat with shame? <br />I care not, so he leave my true self free, <br />Impose not on me also; but alas! <br />I too, at fault, bewildered, sometimes take <br />Him for myself, and far from mine own sight, <br />Torpid, indifferent, doth mine own self pass; <br />And yet anon leaps suddenly awake, <br />And spurns the gibbering mime into the night.<br /><br />William Watson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-mock-self/
