In Georgia, there is a town called Cuthbert,
One thousand whites, two thousand blacks,
A public square in the center with a statue of Confederate soldiers,
And over it all the lush magic of the Land of the Darkies …

Here I have an aunt and uncle, and cousins: the only Jews in the place …
My uncle has the general store and extends credit to the “niggers” for miles about:
He is loved equally by black and white,
And attends all the churches, seriatim, lest he be accused of godlessness …

For five weeks I try to be an artist, a pure poet,
And sit, steeped in Shelley and Poe, writing my Leandro & Beatrice …
At first I sleep in the lonely side of the house in a great room:
But uncle, aunt and cousins are locked in two adjoining rooms,
After my uncle has made the house secure, revolver in hand …

“Niggers”—I lie awake terrified all night …
On the third day I surrender: for the first time in my life I admit to another that I am afraid of robbers …
I am taken in, to sleep with my cousins: we are all warm, a nested family, with a dim light burning …
The woods are beautiful, but full of poisonous snakes:
I walk there with a soft-souled minister who tries to lead me to Jesus:
I reject Jesus, but am troubled, and full of those sentimental tears that drop over modern Christianity …
Somehow that de-deviled, de-helled, denatured world of gentle goodness
Can't be squared with nigger-horror and deadly reptiles …

Soft southern seminary girls in white flutter at the college next door;
I go into cool Colonial mansions and befo'-de-war, dear regal antebellum dames show me their pictures and their flowers …
I am uncomfortable among the bluff friendly men who chew and spit and talk women and lynching and Democratic politics …
The South makes me languid, the early spring with tropical beauty of purple wistaria on all the porch pillars,
Riot of roses and hyacinth in the gardens, early cotton out of the red soil,
And the strange enervating too-lush, too-abundant loveliness …

I am sapped of strength: I feel that my art will grow prolix and sweetish …
The whole dream of being another Shelley grows stale and sour in my mouth …
The North seems hard with pines, sea-brine, metallic and granite cities,
A sparkle of sky, a ruggedness of earth,
And battle calls me …

I am sick of being weak,
Of idling with tears, of writing soft sing-song,
Of sheathing myself in the southern velvet that covers the claws of a tiger …
I am suddenly enamoured of manhood, work, adventure, common things …
I will go North and marry and make good in a job
I am just twenty-one … time now to be a man …