You shall above all things be glad and

New Poems (1938)

22you shall above all things be glad and youngFor if you’re young,whatever life you wear

it will become you;and if you are gladwhatever’s living will yourself become.Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:i can entirely her only love

whose any mystery makes every man’sflesh put space on;and his mind take off time

that you should ever think,may god forbidand (in his mercy) your true lover spare:for that way knowledge lies,the foetal gravecalled progress,and negation’s dead undoom.

I’d rather learn from one bird how to singthan teach ten thousand stars how not to dance

from New Poems (1940)