You know how madness creeps into
the night, slips around yesterday's
door to memory, leaves you terrified
of consequences & what was left behind
by ageless reason, circumstance
leads to accidental lapses
& you scream at changes in the sea.
You wave, to the wind for a sunset of gold
& amethyst, sing rainbows
of the moon in time.
While the seasons turn upon themselves
you grow stiffly old.
In a pre-fabricated dance
you're humming out of tune.
and now you're falling apart as I did
and I don't know how to save you from this madness
Mad eyes,
glazed and deep,
slice slowly,
dissecting each
motion.
Lost in
phosphorescent seas
whose waters
we have
long since
forgotten.
All night she walked and dreamed on the frozen road,
She the insane one, feeling not thinking.
All night she walked and wanted to Kill,
Wanted to love and kill.
What did she want?
Nobody knew.
None of us knew why she wanted
To kill.
We were the heavy ones, heavy and sure.
The wind in the cornfields moved us not.
We the Americans, worthy and sure,
Worthy and sure of ourselves.
Tom killed his brother on Wednesday night,
Back of the corncrib, under the hill.
Then she ran to him, sobbing and calling,
She who had loved and could not kill.
Like a vivid hyperbole,
The sun plunged into April’s freshness,
And struck its sparkling madness
Against the barnlike dejection
Of this dark red insane asylum.
A softly clutching noise
Stumbled from the open windows.
Now and then obliquely reeling shrieks
Rose, as though from men
To whom death had assumed
An inexpressibly kindly face.
A man stood at one window,
His gaunt face trembling underneath
A feverish jauntiness.
A long white feather slanted back
Upon his almost shapeless hat,
Better to see your cheek grown hollow,
Better to see your temple worn,
Than to forget to follow, follow,
After the sound of a silver horn.
Better to bind your brow with willow
And follow, follow until you die,
Than to sleep with your head on a golden pillow,
Nor lift it up when the hunt goes by.
Better to see your cheek grown sallow
And your hair grown gray, so soon, so soon,
Than to forget to hallo, hallo,
After the milk-white hounds of the moon.
The cloud-cymbals make the music of the thunder;
The lightning-maid dances to its measure;
While the breeze-devotees sing their prayer.
A worship of lunatics, this;
God-mad souls seeking peace;
Dervishes, whose agony knows no surcease.
No many-color-robed priest is here;
No conch-shell's flourish and blare;
No frankincense, myrrh, or perfume rare.
A worship of passion and powers;
A benediction of liquid flowers
Poured through a million silver showers.
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action: and till action, lust
Is perjur'd, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight;
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme;
A bliss in proof,-- and prov'd, a very woe;
Before, a joy propos'd; behind a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
My love is as a fever longing still,
For that which longer nurseth the disease;
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now Reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth vainly express'd;
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
A spirit sped
Through spaces of night;
And as he sped, he called,
"God! God!"
He went through valleys
Of black death-slime,
Ever calling,
"God! God!"
Their echoes
From crevice and cavern
Mocked him:
"God! God! God!"
Fleetly into the plains of space
He went, ever calling,
"God! God!"
Eventually, then, he screamed,
Moonbeam, leave the shadowy vale,
To bathe this burning brow.
Moonbeam, why art thou so pale,
As thou walkest o'er the dewy dale,
Where humble wild-flowers grow?
Is it to mimic me?
But that can never be;
For thine orb is bright,
And the clouds are light,
That at intervals shadow the star-studded night.
Now all is deathy still on earth;
Nature's tired frame reposes;
And, ere the golden morning's birth
Its radiant hues discloses,
Flies forth its balmy breath.
But mine is the midnight of Death,
(As revised by Mr. C.D. Locock.)
Melodious Arethusa, o'er my verse
Shed thou once more the spirit of thy stream:
(Two lines missing.)
Who denies verse to Gallus? So, when thou
Glidest beneath the green and purple gleam
Of Syracusan waters, mayest thou flow
Unmingled with the bitter Dorian dew!
Begin, and whilst the goats are browsing now
The soft leaves, in our song let us pursue
The melancholy loves of Gallus. List!
We sing not to the deaf: the wild woods knew
His sufferings, and their echoes answer...
Young Naiades, in what far woodlands wild
Wandered ye, when unworthy love possessed
Our Gallus? Nor where Pindus is up-piled,