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!
When the sun is high, And the hills are happy with light, Then virile and strong I am! Then ruddy with life I fare, The fighter who feels no dread, The roamer who knows no bounds, The hunter who makes the world his prey, And shouting and swept with pride, Still mounts to the lonelier height!
In the cool of the day, When the huddling shadows swarm, And the ominous eyes look out And night slinks over the swales And the silence is chill with death, Then I am the croucher beside the coals, The lurker within the shadowy cave, Who listens and mutters a charm And trembles and waits, A hunted thing grown Afraid of the hunt, A silence enisled in silence, A wonder enwrapped in awe!
I saw a woman stand Under the seas of bloom, Under the waves of colour and light, The showery snow and rose of the odorous trees That made a glory of earth. She stood where the petals fell, And her hands were on her breast, And her lips were touched with wonder, And her eyes were full of pain-- For pure she was, and young, And it was Spring!
Quietly I closed the door. Then I said to my soul: "I shall never come back, Back to this haunted room Where Sorrow and I have slept." I turned from that hated door And passed through the House of Life, Through its ghostly rooms and glad And its corridors dim with age. Then lightly I crossed a threshold Where the casements showed the sun And I entered an unknown room,-- And my heart went cold, For about me stood that Chamber of Pain I had thought to see no more!