I and You

Yes, I come from another country,
To your world I can never belong.
Tinkling guitars cannot please me,
I want a wild desolate song.

I do not read my verses in drawing-rooms
To black-coats and dresses like shrouds.
I read my verses to dragons,
To the waterfalls and to the clouds.

I love like an Arab in the desert
Who flings himself on water and drinks,
Not like a knight in a picture
Who looks at the stars and thinks.

I shall not die in a bedroom
With a priest and a lawyer beside me.
I shall perish in a terrible ravine
With a mass of wild ivy to hide me.

I shall not go to a Protestant heaven,
Open to all in tidy blue skies,
But to a place where thief and publican
And harlot will cry: 'Friend, arise!'

Nikolai Gumilev
(Translated by V. De S. Pinto)