Mental Cases

    Who are these？ Why sit they here in twilight¹？ Wherefore rock they, purgatorial² shadows, Drooping³ tongues from jaws⁴ that slob their relish⁵, Baring teeth that leer like skulls⁶' tongues wicked？ Stroke on stroke of pain, —— but what slow panic, Gouged⁷ these chasms⁸ round their fretted⁹ sockets¹⁰？ Ever from their hair and through their hand palms Misery¹¹ swelters. Surely we have perished Sleeping, and walk hell； but who these hellish？

    —— These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished. Memory fingers in their hair of murders, Multitudinous murders they once witnessed. Wading¹² sloughs¹³ of flesh these helpless wander, Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter. Always they must see these things and hear them, Batter¹⁴ of guns and shatter of flying muscles, Carnage incomparable and human squander¹⁵ Rucked too thick for these men's extrication¹⁶.

    Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented¹⁷ Back into their brains, because on their sense Sunlight seems a bloodsmear； night comes blood-black； Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh ——Thus their heads wear this hilarious¹⁸, hideous¹⁹, Awful falseness of set-smiling corpses²⁰. —— Thus their hands are plucking at each other； Picking at the rope-knouts of their scourging²¹； Snatching after us who smote²² them, brother, Pawing us who dealt them war and madness.