Navigating with Madrigals for oars, my sails full of the sighs of dowagers
 

What would you have me do? Seek for the patronage of some great man, and
like a creeping vine on a tall tree, crawl upward, where I cannot stand
alone? No thank you!

Dedicate, as others do, poems to pawnbrokers?

Be a buffoon in the vile hope of teasing out a smile on some cold face? No
thank you!

Eat a toad for breakfast every morning?

Make my knees callous, and cultivate a supple spine--wear out my belly,
groveling in the dust? No thank you!

Scratch the back of any swine who roots up gold for me?

Tickle the horns of Mammon with my left hand, while my right, too proud to
know his partner's business, takes in the fee? No thank you!

Use the fire God gave me to burn incense all day long under the nose of wood
and stone? No thank you!

Shall I go leaping into ladies' laps and licking fingers? --Or, to change
the form-- Navigating with Madrigals for oars, my sails full of the sighs of
dowagers? No thank you!

Publish verses at my own expense? No thank you!

Be the patron saint of a small group of literary souls who dine together
every Tuesday? No I thank you!

Shall I labor day and night to build a reputation on one song, and never
write another?

Shall I find true genius only among geniuses, palpitate over little
paragraphs, and struggle to insinuate my name in the columns of the Mercury!
No thank you!

Calculate, scheme, be afraid, love more to make a visit than a poem, seek
introductions, favors, influences? --No thank you! No, I thank you! And
again, I thank you!


--But... To walk in my own way and be alone, free, with an eye to see things
as they are, a voice that means manhood-- to cock my hat where I choose-- At
a word, a Yes, a No, to fight, to write, to travel my own road under the
sun, under the stars, nor doubt if fame or fortune lie beyond the bourne--
Never to make a line I have not heard in my own heart; yet, with all modesty
to say, "My soul, be satisfied with flowers, with fruit, with weeds even;
but gather them in the one garden you may call your own."

So, when I win some triumph, by some chance, render no share to Caesar-- in
a word, I am too proud to be a parasite, and if nature wants the germ that
grows towering to heaven like the mountain pine, or like the Oak, sheltering
multitudes-- I stand, not high it may be, but alone!