To My Dear Fellow Men

Manuscripts of endless weight

Some quite good, some second rate

The mail does bring me every day

Without a rest or long delay.

I am not a wicked man

And want to help all I can

Everyone whom cruel fate

Has selected to create.

Science and philosophy

And riddles of psychology;

Cure-alls for humanity

And, of course, much poetry.

Each one thinks that only he

Had his parcel sent to me

And his rage turns to a tirade

If my answer is delayed.

O, my dear man, do admit

That here is a close limit

To the bit of intellect

Which is up there in the head.

To those who choose to persevere

Let me whisper in their ear:

Oh Holy Florian, great Saint!

Please spare my house, let others faint!

This little prayer I recite

With deep devotion every night.

––Albert Einstein, 1953