If when my
wife is
sleeping
and the
baby and Kathleen
are
sleeping
and the
sun is a
flame-
white disc
in
silken
mists
above
shining trees,--
if I in my north room
dance naked,
grotesquely
before my
mirror
waving my
shirt round my
head
and
singing
softly to
myself:
'I am
lonely,
lonely,
I was
born to be lonely,
I am
best so!'
If I
admire my
arms, my
face
my
shoulders,
flanks,
buttocks
against the
yellow drawn
shades,--
Who shall say I am not
The happy genius of my household?
-William Carlos Williams, 1917.