The Madman

A madman chased my early childhood years Thrice-sweet and blossoming, and seizing them-- Alas!--he crushed them in his reckless fury Like twigs of purple-colored pomegranate!

He scattered them in pieces everywhere: Into the joyless house and in the yard, On narrow streets, and paths, and pathless haunts, Where persecution raves, and menace dumb Chills all away from the pure light and air. The madman's cursed hands hold everything With snares and claws and stones and knives; they fall On loneliness and on embracings, night Or day, on sleep or wake, and everywhere!

And yonder on the streets and in the houses, Children like me in age, whose years were filled With bloom and sweetness, freely ran and laughed And played. Behind me, close, the madman's snares I heard; and then, the deadened sound of feet! I breathed his flaming breath! And if his steps Were slow, still wilder did his laughter hunt me!

Oh, for my life's cold quiverings of pain! Oh, for the goading--not like the divine Goading that drove the maid of Inachus, Io, to wander on and on in frenzy;-- But like the sudden goading that smites down The little bird when first it tries its wings! And lo, blood of my blood the madman was! A past, ancestral, long forgotten sin, That, bursting forth upon me vampire-like, Snatched from my head the dewy crown of joy!