And I 've quit the straight clean-seeing, I 've attached the label 'cad,'
And I want to go down fighting, want to die with brain blood-mad:
I could spit into their faces when they grin, 'He 's not so bad!'
Drawn-out weeks I 've strained the head-rope, weary months I 've longed to start
For the last and best performance, where for once I 'm given the part
Of a white man—and a little nickel devil through my heart.
Church parade, the padre gave out that damnation 's no man's fate,
That you just report deficient and He never notes you late;
But I 'm not a man to whine for mercy passing through hell's gate.
I don't snivel of repentance when hot tears have run to flood,
For I plucked a blowing rosebud and I trailed it in the mud,
But I 'd like to lave its poor soiled petals with my body's blood.
I would leave the merest speck of gold within the filth-clogged sieve,
Gold that she and God might notice there and, noticing, forgive;
I would show I knew to die although I never learned to live.
