The Inspiration
CYRANO

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 that 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 night and day
to built 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
into 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 Sing, to laugh, to dream,
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-or write. To travel any 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 my 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!