Georgia O'Keeffe, 1979

And now the tempter whispers 'But you also

   Have the slave-owner's mind,

Would like to sleep on a mattress of easy profits,

   To snap your fingers or a whip and find

Servants or houris ready to wince and flatter

   And build with their degradation your self-esteem;

What you want is not a world of the free in function

   But a niche at the top, the skimmings of the cream.'

And I answer that that is largely so for habit makes me

   Think victory for one implies another's defeat,

That freedom means the power to order, and that in order

   To preserve the values dear to the elite

The elite must remain a few. It is so hard to imagine

   A world where the many would have their chance without

A fall in the standard of intellectual living

   And nothing left that the highbrow cared about.

Which fears must be suppressed. There is no reason for thinking

   That, if you give a chance to people to think or live,

The arts of thought or life will suffer and become rougher

   And not return more than you could ever give.

And now I relapse to sleep, to dreams perhaps and reaction

   Where I shall play play the gangster or the sheikh,

Kill for love of killing, make the world my sofa,

   Unzip the women and insult the meek.

Which fantasies no doubt are due to my private history,

   Matter for the analyst,

But the final cure is not in his past-dissecting fingers

   But in a future of action, the will and fist

Of those who abjure the luxury of self-pity

   And prefer to risk a movement without being sure

If movement would be better or worse in a hundred

   Years or a thousand when their heart is pure.

None of our hearts are pure, we always have mixed motives,

   Are self deceivers, but the worst of all

Deceits is to murmur 'Lord, I am not worthy'

   And, lying easy, turn your face to the wall.

But may I cure that habit, look up and outwards,

   And may my feet follow my wider glance

First no doubt to stumble, then to walk with the others

   And in the end - with time and luck - to dance.

Louis MacNeice, from Autumn Journal