[BNP/E3, 78 – 39]

Agony

Woe Supreme.

A friend said once to me: “All that thou writest,

Surely 'tis fancy, and pretence, and feigned;

Surely the moaning wherewith thou affrightest

The healthy mind is preconceived and strained!

“In all the songs and tales that thou indictest

Why's there no word that is not hard nor pained?

Why in good things and true thou not delightest,

But even in youth by thee joys are disdained?”

Because, dear friend, thought to be mad is sweet

Sometimes, and though at others nameless woe,

Yet never human pain the pain can meet

Of the mad brain that doth its madness know;

Because my science learn'd has made complete

The knowledge of an ill that cannot go.

Alexander Search

8^th June 1907.