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 Though God knows I had never summoned him, Or thought of him. To this day I'm adrift And in the dark, out of all reckoning, To find a reason why he ever was, Or what was ailing Fate when he was born On this alleged God-ordered earth of ours. Now and again there comes one of his ilk— By chance, we say. I leave all that to you. Whether it was an evil chance alone, Or some invidious juggling of the stars, Or some accrued arrears of ancestors Who throve on debts that I was here to pay, Or sins within me that I knew not of, Or just a foretaste of what waits in hell For those of us who cannot love a worm,— Whatever it was, or whence or why it was, One day there came a stranger to the school.