Classic Poem

When, in my effervescent youth,
I first read David Copperfield ,
I felt the demonstrated truth
That I had found my proper field.
As David, simple, gallant, proud,
Affronted each catastrophe,
Involuntarily I vowed,
" That's me! "

And when I read of d'Artagnan
And the immortal Musketeers,
And when I followed Jean Valjean
Through pages dampened with my tears,
Where dauntless hardihood defied
The wrong in doughty derring-do,
I periodically cried,
" That's me, too! "

In Sherlock Holmes and Rastignac
Much of myself was realized;
In Cyrano de Bergerac
I found myself idealized.
A hero with a secret shame,
Hiding the smart from other men,
Would often cause me to exclaim,
" That's me again! "

The fiction of the present day
I view with some dubiety;
The hero is a castaway,
A misfit of society,
A drunkard or a mental case,
A pervert or a debauchee,
I murmur with a sour grimace,
" Where's me? "