I am at large, can go this way and that,

No dungeon walls, no prison bars say halt,

When roving fancies seize upon my feet.

But am I free? Can I be truly free

When that which lives within me is repressed,

When my true self in vain from deep within

Doth clamor for the right of self-expression?

What hideous mockery of freedom this!

Put me in jail, put me in jail for life,

Let bread and water be my only fare,

Make rats and spiders my associates.

But have the light into my dungeon pour

From overhead and give me clay,

Oh, give me lots of clay—the tender flesh,

The oily, tender flesh of mother earth,

Responsive as a mistress to the touch,

And I will have a feast no king e’er knew,

And taste of pleasures that the gods would envy.

And I will make unto myself a world,

A world of which myself would be the God,

A world in which my every dream and thought,

My every feeling and my every passion

Would find embodiment in plastic form.

Oh, for a prison where I could be free!