Do you think I can’t forgive you? I forgive
Both of us for being born of the flesh,
Which means I forgive all tossing and turning,
All foundering, all not finding,
All irreconcilability,
All the friction of this great orphanage
Where no one knows his origin and no one
Comes to claim him. I forgive even
The unrevealing revelation of love
That lifts a lid purely
To close it, and leaves us knowing that greater things
Are close, but not to be disclosed
Though we die for them. I forgive
Everything, my most dear Perpetua,
Except that I wasn’t born something less ambitious,
Such as a Muscovy duck.

— Christopher Fry, Venus Observed