What words to speak that you will not condemn

Or find some hidden angle to attack?

Your every word becomes an axiom

While those I say seem ever to fall flat.

My daily toil is always less the more

And ever stands an action to rebuke;

Still to these labors where my heart I pour

Each small success is deemed a trifling fluke.

My measured worth will always here fall short,

My glass shown ever as the emptied half—

And wanting dignity, each posed retort

Is still received as but a hapless gaffe.

I do things right and they’re remembered not;

I do things wrong, yea never there forgot.