Is It Any Wonder a Man Goes Mad?

Not to Live:

It kissed us, soft, to cut our throats, this coast,

like a malice of the lazy King. I hunt,

& hunt! but find here what to kill?—nothing is blunt,

but phantoming uneases I find. Ghost

on ghost precedes of all most scared us, most

we fled. Howls fail upon this secret, far air: grunt,

shaming for food; you must. I love the King

& it was not I who strangled at the toast

but a flux of a free & dying adjutant:

God be with him. He & God be with us all,

for we are not to live, I cannot wring,

like laundry, blue my soul—indecisive thing . .

From undergrowth & over odd birds call

and who would starv'd so survive? God save the King.

John Berryman.