420 

 THE MAD POET'S ADDRESS TO THE MOON. 



I CANNOT endure thy feverish glow, 



Thou moon, so brazen and round ; 

 A tide-like rush with a burning flow 

 Through my weak and worn-out brain doth go 



With a harsh continual sound, 

 And my dust-sunk eye I am forced to throw 



Up from the cool dark ground. 

 It is strange scarce a year, with its burden of ills, 



Hath sped on eternity's blast, 

 Since I felt in my bosom the sweetest of thrills, 

 And joyously trod o'er the lone mossy hills, 



With mine eye ever up to thee cast ; 

 And drank with delight at thy clear running rills, 



Made purer by thee as they passed. 

 But now, should I drink at a streamlet of thine, 



Which deeply reflects thy strange ray, 

 I seem as if drunk with the strongest of wine, 

 And my brain heaves with shapes that I cannot define, 



And, delirious, I hurry away, 

 And mutter and beat this poor forehead of mine 



Till the first soothing streak of the day. 

 Then the spirit of song started up in my breast, 



And I sang all night long in thy praise ; 

 And I felt with the finest of ecstasy blest, 

 When I saw the pure cloudlet of love and of rest 



A canopy over thee raise ; 

 And I wept when I saw thee go down in the west, 



Like thy priests in the old heathen days. 

 But the spirit of song then was gentle and glad, 



But now it is fearfully changed, 

 And it lies in my bosom so stricken and sad, 

 Like a demon that from the beginning was mad, 



And to it all things are estranged ; 

 And the deep-feeling strings which its minstrelsy had 



Are either destroyed or deranged. 

 And I have to keep watch o'er it early and late, 



And all the long desolate night, 

 In fear it should rise and destroy me in hate, 

 And howl like an ominous dog at a gate, 



Where death is prepared to alight, 

 And make my own tongue to deliver the date 



When my heart with the dust must unite. 

 Even now, while I walk through thy thick fiery mists, 



I feel it up-spring in its lair ; 

 Even now, in its fury and pride it exists, 

 And dares my weak spirit to enter the lists 



Aloft in the mystical air ; 

 And I know that thy influence, dread spirit, assists 



To drag me along with it there. 

 Away I must dive through the depths of the sea, 



And find out some limitless cave, 



Where my mind 'neath a shadow unshifting may be/ 

 Where the spirit of song, when it cannot get free, 



May die in my bosom its grave. 

 Away to the rock-girdled ocean I flee, 



To cool my hot brain in the wave. W. M. 



