A MIND APART Poems of Melancholy. Madness, and Addiction Edited by MARK S. BAUER OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2009 CONTENTS Preface xxiii Introduction 1 Poems 33 Thomas Hoccleve (c. 1368/g-c. 1426) 33 from "The Complaint of Hoccleve: Hoccleve Remembers His Madness" 33 from "Anxious Thought" 38 Charles d'Orleans (1394-1465) 40 I am Forsaken 40 Farewell this World 40 William Dunbar (1460-1520) 42 In Winter 42 Alexander Barclay (1475-1552) 44 from "The Ship of Fools—Of Glotons and Dronkards" 44 Anonymous (published 1500) 45 A Song of Ale 45 Petition to Have Her Leave to Die 47 x Contents Fulke Greville (1554-1628) 48 from "Despair" 48 Thomas Lodge (1557-1625) 52 Melancholy 52 William Shakespeare (1564-1616) 53 Sonnet 129 53 Sir Henry Wo tton (is68-i63g) 54 Upon the Death of Sir Albert Morton's Wife 54 A Hymn to My God in a Night of My Late Sickness 54 Sir John Davies (1569-1618) 55 Affliction 55 Robert Burton (1577-1640) 57 The Author's Abstract of Melancholy 57 John Fletcher (1579-1625) and/or Thomas Middleton (1580-1627) 60 Melancholy 60 Lady Mary Wroth (1586-c. 1652) 61 "Sonnet XIX" from The Countess of Montgomery's Urania 61 "Sonnet VI" from Pamphilia to Amphilanthus 61 Robert Herrick (1591-1674) 63 The Mad Maid's Song 63 George Herbert (1593-1633) 64 Affliction (I) 64 Affliction (IV) 66 The Collar 67 John Milton (1608-1674) 69 from "Samson Agonistes" 69 "Methought I saw my late espoused Saint" 70 Contents xi Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) 71 Upon Some Distemper of the Body 71 Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1624-1674) 72 A Discourse on Melancholy 72 Thomas Traherne (1636-1674) 73 Solitude 73 James Carkesse (published 1679) 77 On the Doctors' Telling Him that till He Left off Making Verses He Was Not Fit to be Discharged 77 Anonymous (published 1658) 78 On Melancholy 78 Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea (1661-1720) 80 The Spleen: A Pindaric Poem 80 Edward Ward (1667-1731) 84 The Extravagant Drunkard's Wish 84 Isaac Watts (1674-1748) 85 The Hurry of the Spirits, in a Fever and Nervous Disorders 85 Edward Young (1683-1765) 87 from "Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality: Night I" 87 William Harrison (1685-1713) 89 In Praise of Laudanum 89 Mary Barber (1685-1755) 90 On seeing an Officer's Widow distracted, who had been driven to Despair by a long and fruitless Solicitation for the Arrears of her Pension 90 Anonymous (published 1692) 91 Loving Mad Tom 91 xii Contents Matthew Green (1696-1737) 93 from "The Spleen. An Epistle to Mr. C-— J " 93 William Collins (1721-1759) 97 Ode to Fear 97 Thomas Mozeen (published 1768) 100 The Bedlamite 100 Christopher Smart (1722-1771) 102 Hymn to the Supreme Being, on Recovery from a Dangerous Fit of Illness 102 from "Jubilate Agno," Fragment B 106 Thomas Warton (1728-1790) 112 from "The Pleasures of Melancholy" 112 William Cowper (1731-1800) 114 Lines Written During a Period of Insanity 114 The Shrubbery, Written in a Time of Affliction 115 Anonymous (published 1733) 116 A Receipt to Cure a Loves Fit 116 Robert Fergusson (1750-1774) 117 Ode to Disappointment 117 Anonymous (published 1751) 119 Strip Me Naked, or Royal Gin for Ever. A Picture 119 Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770) 120 Sunday, A Fragment 120 John Codrington Bampfylde (1754-1796) 122 On a Frightful Dream 122 William Blake (1757-1827) 123 "My Spectre around me night and day" 123 Contents xiii To Mr. Butts, Gr. Marlborough St. London; from Letters, A Selection 125 Mary 125 Mad Song 127 Robert Bloomfield (1766-1823) 129 from "The Farmer's Boy" 129 Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) 131 The Suicide's Argument 131 The Pains of Sleep 131 from "Dejection: An Ode" 133 George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) 136 from "The Lament of Tasso" 136 Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) 138 Stanzas Written in Dejection Near Naples 138 John Clare (1793-1864) 140 I Am 140 Sonnet: I Am 140 The Ruins of Despair 141 To Melancholy 143 Song 143 John Keats (1795-1821) 145 Ode on Melancholy 145 Anonymous ("Orestes") (published 1796) 146 A Sonnet to Opium; Celebrating its Virtues. Written at the Side of Julia, when the Author was Inspired with a Dose of Laudanum, more than Sufficient for two moderate Turks 146 Thomas Haynes Bayly (1797-1839) 147 "I welcome thee back again, Spirit of Song!" 147 xiv Contents Popular Songs 149 from American Mock-Bird (published 1801) 149 The Mad Lover 149 Crazy Paul 150 from Temple of Harmony (published 1801) 151 Song 151 from Choice Collection of Admired Songs (published 1805) 153 Crazy Jane 153 The Death of Crazy Jane 154 from Boston Musical Miscellany (published 1815) 155 Nancy and Gin 155 from Songster's Companion (published 1815) 156 Mary Le More 156 Away with Melancholy 157 from Songs for Ladies (published 1825) 158 The Frantic Maid 158 from The Muse, or The Flowers of Poetry (published 1827) 159 Soliloquy on Smoking 159 Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) 160 Grief 160 Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) 161 from "In Memoriam" 161 Matthew Arnold (1822-18 88) 164 from "Empedocles on Etna" 164 Sydney Dobell (1824-1874) 168 from "Balder. Part the First," Scenes XIII and XIV 168 Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) 171 #126 171 #410 171 #435 172 #670 172 #1062 173 Contents xv Henry Kendall (1839-1882) 174 Outre Mer 174 Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) 176 Just the Same 176 The Wound 176 In Tenebris II 177 Mad Judy 177 Robert Bridges (1844-1930) 179 Melancholia 179 Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) 180 "No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief" 180 Carrion Comfort 180 "I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day" 181 A. Mary F. Robinson (1857-1944) 182 Neurasthenia 182 Ernest Dowson (1867-1900) 183 To One in Bedlam 183 Spleen 183 Edward Thomas (1878-1917) 185 Melancholy 185 Rain 185 Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) 187 Repression of War Experience 187 Haunted 188 Ivor Gurney (1890-1937) 190 Strange Hells 190 The Shame 190 To God 191 An Appeal for Death 192 For Mercy of Death 193 xvi Contents Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) 194 Mental Cases 194 Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) 195 Sorrow 195 "I know a hundred ways to die" 195 Menses 196 Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) 198 Resume 198 Louise Bogan (1897-1970) 199 Evening in the Sanitarium 199 Hart Crane (1899-1932) 201 The Idiot 201 (John Orley) Allen Tate (i8gg-i979) 202 Ode to Fear 202 Anonymous (published 1930) 203 from "Thoughts Suggested on a Thanksgiving Day Passed at the State Lunatic Asylum, Worcester, Mass., by a Patient" 203 from Poetry of the Insane (Charles Mayos, editor; published 1930) 206 Awakening 206 The Snow 206 The Cure 208 Richard David Comstock (published 1930) 209 Always Like This 209 Stanley Kunitz (1905-2006) 210 The Portrait 210 Theodore Roethke (igo8-ig63) 211 In a Dark Time 211 Contents xvii Her Longing 212 Lines Upon Leaving a Sanitarium 212 Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) 214 Visits to Saint Elizabeths 214 J. V. (James Vincent) Cunningham (1911-1985) 217 from Interview with Doctor Drink 217 Delmore Schwartz (1913-1966) 218 from "The Studies of Narcissus" 218 from Genesis, Book II 220 John Berryman (1914-1972) 222 Dreamsongs 172 222 Randall Jarrell (1914-1965) 223 In the Ward: The Sacred Wood 223 Weldon Kees (1914-1955) 225 from "The Fall of the Magicians" 225 The Clinic 226 Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) 227 Out of the Sighs 227 Robert Lowell (1917-1977) 228 Visitors 228 Waking in the Blue 229 Home After Three Months Away 231 Unwanted 232 Robert Edward Duncan (1919-1988) 236 Songs of An Other 236 Howard Nemerov (1920-1991) 238 To D , Dead by Her Own Hand 238 xviii Contents Hayden Carruth (1921-) 239 from "The Asylum" 239 Lines Written in an Asylum 242 from "Ontological Episode of the Asylum" 243 Philip Larkin (1922-1985) 245 Neurotics 245 Anthony Hecht (1923-2004) 246 A Deep Breath at Dawn 246 Despair 248 Richard Hugo (1923-1982) 249 In Your War Dream 249 Cape Nothing 249 Letter to Logan from Milltown 250 James Schuyler (1923-1991) 252 The Payne Whitney Poems: What 252 The Payne Whitney Poems: Pastime 252 The Payne Whitney Poems: The Night 253 Donald Justice (1925-2004) 255 Counting the Mad 255 The Man Closing Up 255 Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) 259 from "Howl" 259 Robert Bly(ig26-) 262 Depression 262 Wiley Clements (1928-) 263 Military Journalist 263 Anne Sexton (1928-1974) 264 from "The Double Image" 264 Contents XIX The Addict 265 Ringing the Bells 267 Carl Wolfe Solomon (1928-) 269 Anti-Totalitarian Manifesto for Evergreen Review 269 Ned 0'Gorman (1929-) 270 Peace, After Long Madness 270 Stuart Z. Perkoff (1930-1974) 271 from "The Venice Poems, I" 271 Junk Nursery Rhymes 275 Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) 277 Elm 277 Street Song 278 from The Journal of Saint Dympna (Earl "Pete" Nurmi, editor; published 1979) 280 Lee Merrill 280 Medication 280 Mary Coleman 282 "The ghost behemians of Meridel LeSueur" 282 John Appling Sours 283 Institute at Christmas 283 Lucille Clifton (1936-) 285 shapeshifter poems 285 Jim Harrison (1937-) 287 Noon 287 Sequence I 287 Les Murray (1938-) 289 from Fredy Neptune, Book I 289 Sharon Olds (1942-) 291 Satan Says 291 xx Contents Timothy Dekin (1943-2001) 293 Melancholy 293 Quincy Troupe (1943-) 294 River Town Packin House Blues 294 Thomas P. Beresford (1946-) 298 Edith in Ann Arbor 298 R. L.