And indeed there will be time        
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"        
Time to turn back and descend the stair,        
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—              
[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]        
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,        
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—        
[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]        
Do I dare              
Disturb the universe?        
In a minute there is time        
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.        

For I have known them all already, known them all:—        
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,              
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;        
I know the voices dying with a dying fall        
Beneath the music from a farther room.        
So how should I presume?        

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—              
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,        
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,        
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,        
Then how should I begin        
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?              
And how should I presume?        

And I have known the arms already, known them all—        
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare        
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]        
It is perfume from a dress              
That makes me so digress?        
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.        
And should I then presume?        
And how should I begin?
      .      .      .      .      .        
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets              
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes        
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…        

I should have been a pair of ragged claws        
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.