Fasten the chamber!
Hide the red key;
Cover the portal,
That eyes may not see.
Get thee to market,
To wedding and prayer;
Labor or revel,
The chamber is there!

In comes a stranger —
" Thy pictures how fine,
Titian or Guido,
Whose is the sign? "
Looks he behind them?
Ah! have a care!
" Here is a finer. "
The chamber is there!

Fair spreads the banquet,
Rich the array;
See the bright torches
Mimicking day;
When harp and viol
Thrill the soft air,
Comes a light whisper:

The fascination of what's difficult
Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent
Spontaneous joy and natural content
Out of my heart. There's something ails our colt
That must, as if it had not holy blood
Nor on Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud,
Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt
As though it dragged road-metal. My curse on plays
That have to be set up in fifty ways,
On the day's war with every knave and dolt,
Theatre business, management of men.
I swear before the dawn comes round again
I'll find the stable and pull out the bolt.

The farthest thunder that I heard
Was nearer than the sky,
And rumbles still, though torrid noons
Have lain their missiles by.
The lightning that preceded it
Struck no one but myself,
But I would not exchange the bolt
For all the rest of life.
Indebtedness to oxygen
The chemist may repay,
But not the obligation
To electricity.
It founds the homes and decks the days,
And every clamor bright
Is but the gleam concomitant
Of that waylaying light.
The thought is quiet as a flake, —
A crash without a sound;

Farragut, Farragut,
Old Heart of Oak,
Daring Dave Farragut,
Thunderbolt stroke,
Watches the hoary mist
Lift from the bay,
Till his flag, glory-kissed,
Greets the young day.

Far, by gray Morgan's walls,
Looms the black fleet.
Hark, deck to rampart calls
With the drums' beat!
Buoy your chains overboard,
While the steam hums;
Men! to the battlement,
Farragut comes.

See, as the hurricane
Hurtles in wrath
Squadrons of clouds amain
Back from its path!
Back to the parapet,
To the guns' lips,

A farmer went trotting upon his grey mare,
Bumpety, bumpety, bump!
With his daughter behind him so rosy and fair,
Lumpety, lumpety, lump!

A raven cried, Croak! and they all tumbled down,
Bumpety, bumpety, bump!
The mare broke her knees and the farmer his crown,
Lumpety, lumpety, lump!

The mischievous raven flew laughing away,
Bumpety, bumpety, bump!
And vowed he would serve them the same the next day,
Lumpety, lumpety, lump!

Death is not the worst of it
for I have died before —
at the hands of gangs who guzzled their courage
or boy/men who cuddled then cudgeled me to death,
at the hands of healers who electroshocked my brains
as if they were frying eggs,
and at my own hands.
So death is not the worst of it
for I have known death —
gang death on the docks, sudden death in my bedroom,
slow death in the sanitarium, and chosen death on my chaise.

Because I have known death I have thwarted it.

1

De farmer say to de weevil:
" What you doin' on de square? "
De li'l bug say to de farmer:
" Got a nice big fambly dere;
Goin' to have a home, goin' to have a home. "

2

Farmer say to de boll weevil:
" You's right up on de square. "
Boll weevil say to de farmer:
" Mah whole fambly's there,
I have a home, I have a home. "

3

Boll weevil say to de lightnin' bug:
" Can I get up a trade wid you?
If I was a lightnin' bug,
I'd work the whole night through,
All night long, all night long. "

It's of a merchant's daughter,
In London town did dwell,
She was modest, fair and handsome
And her parents loved her well.
She was admired by lords and squires,
It was their hopes in vain,
For there was one, 'twas a farmer's son
Poor Mary's heart could gain.

Long time young William courted her
And fixed the wedding day,
Their parents all consented
But her brothers both did say,
‘There lives a lord shall pledge the word
And him she shall not shun,
For we will betray and then we'll slay
Her constant farmer's son.’

The farmer is busy, so busy, to-day,
Trying to gather in all his hay,
So off to the hayfield hurry away
And see what you can do.
Will you rake, and toss, and turn the hay?
Will you ride in the cart which takes it away?
Or pile up the rick as high as you may?
Or—will-you-only- play ?

In daytime hours
guided by instincts that never sleep,
the faintest signals come to me
over vast spaces
of etiquette and restraint.
Sometimes I give in
to the pressing call of instinct,
knowing the code of my kind
better than I know
the National Anthem
or the Lord's Prayer.
I am so driven by my senses
to abandon restraint,
to seek pure pleasure
through every pore.
I want to smell the air around me
thickly scented
with a playboy's freedom.
I want impractical relationships.
I want buddies and partners,