What demon is our god? What name subsumes That act external to our sleeping selves? Not pleasure - it is much too broad and narrow, - Not sex, not for the moment love, but pride, And not in prowess, but pride undefined, Autonomous in its unthought demands, A bit of vanity, but mostly pride.
"In a Few Days Now When Two Memories Meet (1964)". "Poems Of J.V. Cunningham". Book edited by Timothy Steele, 1997.