MADNESS
by: Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)
- HE lonely
farm, the crowded street,
- The palace and the slum,
- Give welcome to my silent feet
- As, bearing gifts, I come.
-
- Last night a beggar crouched alone,
- A ragged helpless thing;
- I set him on a moonbeam throne--
- Today he is a king.
-
- Last night a king in orb and crown
- Held court with splendid cheer;
- Today he tears his purple gown
- And moans and shrieks in fear.
-
- Not iron bars, nor flashing spears,
- Not land, nor sky, nor sea,
- Nor love's artillery of tears
- Can keep mine own from me.
-
- Serene, unchanging, ever fair,
- I smile with secret mirth
- And in a net of mine own hair
- I swing the captive earth.
"Madness" was originally
published in Trees and Other Poems. Joyce Kilmer. New
York: George H. Doran Company, 1914. |
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POEMS BY JOYCE KILMER |
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