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To put him at ease
You must know how to speak gnarled words,
You must be able to show roughened hands;

And to walk with a noise of your heels,
Rolling your body and bending your knees,
As though your boots were as heavy as his . . .

And if some day you go to see people with money
Who hold back their heads
To be viewing the earth from a bit higher up,
If you go to see those men and those women who are able
With expressionless voices to order what is served them,
See that they honour you as their equal—
Stare them down.


And don't be ashamed to let show in you
The young girl and the mother that your mother has been
The child that you were and shall always continue to be,
And all those who are mingled within you,

And all those others, too, on whom in passing
You have bent your eyes
To take and to hold their imprint.

You must not give up any of your faces,
You must learn many faces more,
You must be able to be many sorts of men
To be the better and more totally a man:

A man whose life shines large and far,
Who turns away from no one and from nothing
And who breathes at his ease in every one's house.