I think there was an hour in which God laughed at me, For as I passed along the street, saw that all the women--although their bodies were dexterously concealed-- Were thinking with all their might what men were like: And the men, mechanically correct, cigars at lips, Were wanting to rush at the women, But were restrained by respectability or timidity, Or fear of the consequences or vanity or some puerile dream Of a pale ideal lost in the vast grey sky. So I said to myself, it is time to end all this: I will take the first woman that comes along. And then God laughed at me--and I too smiled To see that He was in such good humour and that the sun was shining. XXVIII I remember, there was a day During which I did not write a line of verse: Nor did I speak a word to any woman, Nor did I meet with death. Yet all that day I was fully occupied: My eyes saw trees, clouds, streets, houses, people; My lungs breathed air; My mouth swallowed food and drink; My hands seized things, my feet touched earth, Or spurned it at my desire. On that day I know I would have been sufficiently happy, If I could have kept my brain from bothering at all About my next trite poem; About the tedious necessities of sex; And about the day on which I would at last meet death. XXIX It is evening, and the earth Wraps her shoulders in an old blue shawl. Afar off there clink the polychrome points of the stars, Indefatigable, after all these years! Here upon earth there is life, and then death, Dawn, and later nightfall, Fire, and the quenching of embers: But why should I not remember that my night is dawn in another part of the world, If the idea fits my fancy? Dawns of marvellous light, wakeful, sleepy, weary, dancing dawns, You are rose petals settling through the blue of my evening: I light my pipe to salute you, And sit puffing smoke in the air and never say a word. XXX I have seemed often feeble and useless to myself, And many times I have wished that the tedium of my life Lay at last dissolved in the cold acid of death: Yet I have not forgotten The sparkling of waters in the sunlight, The sound of a woman's voice, Gliding dancers, Chanting worshippers, A child crying, The wind amid the hills. These I can remember, And I think they are more of me Than the wrinkles on my face and the hungry ache at my heart. XXXI My stiff-spread arms Break into sudden gesture; My feet seize upon the rhythm; My hands drag it upwards: Thus I create the dance. I drink of the red bowl of the sunlight: I swim through seas of rain: I dig my toes into earth: I taste the smack of the wind: I am myself: I live.