So I want no more of twilight sloth,
And I want no more of resting,
And of all the earth I ask no more
Than the green sea, the great sea,
The long road, the white road,
And a change of life to-day!
IF I LOVE YOU
If I love you, woman of rose
And warmth and wondering eyes,
If it so fall out
That you are the woman I choose,
Oh, what is there left to say,
And what should it matter to me,
Or what can it mean to you?
For under the two white breasts
And the womb that makes you woman
The call of the ages whispers
And the countless ghosts awaken,
And stronger than sighs and weeping
The urge that makes us one,
And older than hate or loving or shame
This want that builds the world!
WHAT SHALL I CARE?
What shall I care for the ways
Of these idle and thin-flanked women in silk
And the lisping men-shadows that trail at their heels?
What are they worth in my world
Or the world that I want,
These flabby-armed, indolent, delicate women
And these half-women daring to call themselves men
Yet afraid to get down to the earth
And afraid of the wind,
Afraid of the truth,
And so sadly afraid of themselves?
How can they help me in trouble and death?
How can they keep me from hating my kind?
Oh, I want to get out of their coffining rooms,
I want to walk free with a man,
A man who has lived and dared
And swung through the cycle of life!
God give me a man for a friend
To the End,
Give me a man with his heel on the neck of Hate,
With his fist in the face of Death,
A man not fretted with womanish things,
Unafraid of the light,
Of the worm in the lip of a corpse,
Unafraid of the call from the cell of his heart,—
God give me a man for friend!