Ego Dialogues

What would you have me do?
Find a powerful protector: and choose a patron,
like the dark ivy that creeps round a tree-trunk,
and gains its support by licking at its length,
to climb by a ruse instead of rise by strength?
No, thank you! Dedicate, as others do
my poetry to bankers? Become a buffoon
in the base hope of seeing a less than sinister
smile quiver on the lips of some Minister?
No, thank you! Dine each day on a toad?
Own a belly worn out with crawling? Show
a skin that's dirtied quicker than my knees,
and with a supple spine do tricks to please?
No, thank you! Pat the goat's neck all over,
with one hand, water the lettuce with the other,
a dealer in senna for rhubarb lovers, I suppose
always wafting a censer under someone's nose?
No, thank you! Urge myself on from lap to lap:
be a little maestro pacing round in a trap,
or navigate with oars made from madrigals,
and old ladies' sighs the breezes in my sails?
No, thank you! At some editor's in the City
edit his verse for pay? No, thank you! Try
to get myself named the high Pope of councils
held in the taverns by imbecilic scoundrels?
No, thank you! Work to be a presence known
for one sonnet, instead of writing many? No,
thank you! Not reveal a talent that amazes?
Not be terrorized by the morning papers?
Not say endlessly: 'Oh, could I but see
myself in small print in the 'Mercury'!'
No thank you! Calculate, show fear, grow pallid,
prefer to make a visit than a ballad?
Get myself presented, write petitions to the king?
No, thank you! No, thank you! No, thank you! But.. to sing,
to dream, to smile, to walk, to be alone, be free,
with a voice that stirs, and an eye that still can see!
To cock your hat on one side, when you please
at a yes, a no, to fight, or - make poetry!
To work without a thought of fame or fortune,
on that journey, that you dream of, to the moon!
Never to write a line that's not your own,
and, humble too, say to oneself: My son,
be satisfied with flowers, fruit, even leaves,
if they're from your own garden, your own trees!
And then should chance a little glory bring,
don't feel you need to render Caesar a thing,
but keep the merit to yourself, entirely
in short, don't deign to be the parasitic ivy,
even though you're not the oak tree or the elm,
rise not so high, maybe, but be there all alone!