YES, I come from another country, To your world I can never belong. Tinkling guitars cannot please me, I want a wild desolate song. I do not read my verses in drawing-rooms To black-coats and dresses like shrouds. I read my verses to dragons, To the waterfalls and to the clouds. I love like an Arab in the desert Who flings himself on water and drinks, Not like a knight in a picture Who looks at the stars and thinks. I shall not die in a bedroom With a priest and a lawyer beside me. I shall perish in a terrible ravine With a mass of wild ivy to hide me. I shall not go to a Protestant heaven, Open to all in tidy blue skies, But to a place where thief and publican And harlot will cry: "Friend, arise!" |