(based on “Prayer before Birth” by Macneige;
italics indicate unchanged lines )
~~~Prayer before Birth
I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat
or the club-footed ghoul come near me.
I am not yet born; console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.
I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they murder me by means of my
hands, my death when they live me.
I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take
when old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me,
mountains frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls
me to doom and the beggar refuses
my gift and my children curse me.
I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is
God come near me.
I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither
like water held in the
hands would spill me
Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.
~~~
(Louis Macneige, 1907-?)
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