FICTION

        
         The fertile author’s playing God,
         Shaping his creatures from the sod
         Of his fecund imaginings
         That range from cabbages to kings.

         Like puppets that he animates,
         The ways of life he simulates
         Convince us that what he has dreamed
         Amazingly should be esteemed—

         That simulacra of this kind
         Should seem possessed of heart and mind,
         And though we know we’ve been beguiled,
         We still believe what he has styled.

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