| IF I should pass the tomb of Jonah | |
| I would stop there and sit for awhile; | |
| Because I was swallowed one time deep in the dark | |
| And came out alive after all. | |
| |
| If I pass the burial spot of Nero | 5 |
| I shall say to the wind, “Well, well!”— | |
| I who have fiddled in a world on fire, | |
| I who have done so many stunts not worth doing. | |
| |
| I am looking for the grave of Sinbad too. | |
| I want to shake his ghost-hand and say, | 10 |
| “Neither of us died very early, did we?” | |
| |
| And the last sleeping-place of Nebuchadnezzar— | |
| When I arrive there I shall tell the wind: | |
| “You ate grass; I have eaten crow— | |
| Who is better off now or next year?” | 15 |
| |
| Jack Cade, John Brown, Jesse James, | |
| There too I could sit down and stop for awhile. | |
| I think I could tell their headstones: | |
| “God, let me remember all good losers.” | |
| |
| I could ask people to throw ashes on their heads | 20 |
| In the name of that sergeant at Belleau Woods, | |
| Walking into the drumfires, calling his men, | |
| “Come on, you … Do you want to live forever?” | |
