“I should like to say to the world: I have launched my soul like a ship upon free waters; Beautiful she stands in the docks with proud masts cutting the sky, Perfectly poised, her white sails spreading like wings, Her figurehead a woman with breasts that daunt the spray, Her flag a flutter of coloured exuberance. I should like to see her plunging out of the idle harbour Where the sulky tide drifts scum, and the sailors wrangle and shout, In a thunder of churning waves ramping before her like dappled stallions, Blossoming behind her a field of etiolate lilies.... But to the mimicking, plotting, miserly, cynical, To the rabble and gabble that dance and kill on the quay, I can only say that my soul is a sleeping gondola Lulled by a jester’s mandolin, till night is atinkle with tunes And lantern-lights, along the indolent backwaters.”