PIER PAOLO PASOLINI
From Selected Poems

I, too, head for the Baths of Caracalla,
thinking—with my old, magnificent
privilege of thinking…
(And let there still be a god in me that thinks,
lost, weak, and childish,
yet whose voice is so human
it is almost a song.) Oh, to leave
this prison of poverty!
To be free of the yearning
that makes these ancient nights so splendid!
He who knows yearning, and he who does not,
have something in common: man’s desires are humble.