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With me with firm holding, yet haste, haste on.

For your life adhere to me,

(I may have to be persuaded many times before    [I consent to give

     myself really to you, but what of that?

Must not Nature be persuaded many times?)

No daint dolce affettuoso I,

Bearded, sun-burnt, gray-neck’d, forbidding, I [have arrived,

To be wrestled with as I pass for the solid [prizes of the universe,

For such I afford whoever can persevere [to win them.

(Walt Whitman)