I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
when they speak to me, my thoughts when they think me,
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they murder by means of my
hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls
me to doom and the beggar refuses
my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither
like water held in the
hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.

I am no rose kissed scarlet by the sun,
Nor pale love-in-a-mist; 
No violet that her purple web has spun, 
Dreaming of amethyst; 
I am no hair-fern, beautiful and brief,
But pale and wan I grow, an olive leaf. 

Pale am I, scentless, grayish-green of leaf; 
But pluck me — lay me in a hand where grief 
Has set her sigil in the hollow palm,
Has set her sigil plain as spring has sealed
The iris of all flowers in the field 
To be her herald when the windflowers yield 
To crowns-imperial and the spreading balm. 

Set me, I say, in this one graven palm, 
And I shall change in all my fibres, — know 
All beauty to whose heights I dare to grow. 
My green shall deepen to an emerald glow, 
Redden to ruby, blush into a rose,
Yea, change and grow as passionately sweet 
As does syringa, dying with the beat 
Of the wild wings of those wild birds that nest 
In the warm whiteness of a woman's breast. 

So shall I breathe, burn, bloom, and wither so 
Held in that hand — for whose love have I grown 
Here on my branch, a gray-green leaf alone; 
To height of heart's desire reach up, and go 
Content, having known the best that I could know.