When I Read the Book

WHEN I read the book, the biography famous,

And is this, then, (said I,) what the author calls a man's life?

And so will some one, when I am dead and gone, write my life?

(As if any man really knew aught of my life;

Why, even I myself, I often think, know little or noth-ingnothing of my real life;

Only a few hints—a few diffused, faint clues and indi-rectionsindirections,

I seek, for my own use, to trace out here.)