Some say the road to happiness lies in sacrifice to humanity.
On the contrary, only in abandoning it did I find
My own suffice to be free. Only by,
Flooding the house I lived in,
Throwing the bookcases out of the window,
Making light of the cripple...
Only by,
Snipping the throat of daffodil,
Pouring poison into the sea,
Wantonly going abroad ripe with leprosy,
Did I breathe a sigh of sweet relief.
The day I gave up on mankind,
I kicked a pebble into the sea.
Where it went thence... To sink or to skim...
To dash the brains of a seahorse...
Or buttress an underwater Kingdom...
What business was it of me ???
The day I gave up on life,
I drank merrily; I played the harp; I danced the cobra.
I joined a local political organization,
I looked up a jogging group,
I went to Church,
I swayed like a silver Birch,
And fell over and stared up at the sky.
I wondered why, but I didn't half-die over it.
I felt so weightless,
I might just loose grip of this grassy dome
And fall into forever with all the other stars....
Because, you see,
Mankind had damaged me so completely, so thoroughly,
So terribly badly,
I no longer held out the slightest hope
Of teaching it to sing in harmony.