You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen, — the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives, — I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, " Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves. "
Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me.

I was buried near this Dike
That my Friends may weep as much as they like

I WANDER down on Clinton street south of Polk
And listen to the voices of Italian children quarreling.
It is a cataract of coloratura
And I could sleep to their musical threats and accusations.

I that had found the way so smooth
With gilly-flowers that beck and nod,
Now find that same road wild and steep
With need for compass and for rod.
And yet with feet that bleed, I pant
On blindly, — stumbling back to God!

I sit with my wine — there's no singing or dancing.
I just watch the sky, chanting poems out loud.
The works of the T'ang masters are piled on my desk:
half of them are poems about chaos and separation.

I sit here long, the lamp burns dim;
sound of rain, swept by the wind past my house.
The tears of the banana leaves, outside the window:
for whom are they falling tonight?

I shot a rocket in the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where
Until next day, with rage profound,
The man it fell on came around.
In less time than it takes to tell,
He showed me where that rocket fell;
And now I do not greatly care
To shoot more rockets in the air.

*****I shoot the Hippopotamus

With bullets made of platinum,
Because if I use leaden ones
his hide is sure to flatten 'em.

I shall say what inordinat love is:
The furiosite and wodness of minde,
A instinguible brenning fawting blis,
A gret hungre, insaciat to finde,
A dowcet ille, a ivell swetness blinde,
A right wonderfulle, sugred, swete errour,
Withoute labour rest, contrary to kinde,
Or withoute quiete to have huge labour.

I SEE Thee in the distant blue;
But in the Violet's dell of dew,
Behold, I breathe and touch Thee too.