[BNP/E3, 78 – 16-22]
Documents of Mental Decadence.
Delirium.
Flashes of Madness.
I.
Thy hand with its lovely fingers
And the heavy rings on them!
How my soul over them lingers
Each finger with a heavy gem,
Each ring like a small diadem!
When thou and I are alone,
One only wish my soul stings —
Holding thy hand in my own,
All night, while the night-bird sings,
To take off and replace thy rings.
Alexander Search
January 1906.
[17r]
Delirium.
Flashes of Madness.
II
When thou seeëst me spend hours
Holding in a feverish[1] glance
Thy mouth or teeth, or thy hand,
And notest how my soul devours
With a sleepness like to trance
|The commonest things that stand,|
And askest what in them I see
That into each my spirit delves
As if each had a mystery,
Thou err'st in thy conjecturings,
For what ever obsesses me
Is not things in their weary[2] selves
But the being there[3] of things.
Alexander Search
February 1906.
[18r]
Delirium
Flashes of Madness.
III.
Eyes are strange things.
Meaning in them becomes life,
Life in them has wings.
Look at me thus. Thy glance is mad and rare.
Thine eyes show deep and wild an inner strife.
How they are more than Horror fair!
Alexander Search
1908.
[19r]
Flashes of Madness
IV.
1.
When thou didst speak but now I felt
A terror mad and strange.
Conceive it thou. I could have knelt
To thy lips, to their curve, to its change.
The talking curve of thy lips
And thy teeth but slightly shown
Were my delirium's waking whips.
I felt my reason o’erthrown.
A super-sensual fetichism
Haunts my deep-raving brain.
Greater than ever grows the abysm
Of my reason's and feeling's schism,
Cut with the pickaxe[4] of pain.
More than they show all things contain.
2.
Something not of this world doth lie
[20r]
Flashes of Madness – IV - 2
In thy smile, in thy lips live turn;
A figure, a form I know not why
That wakes in me — without a sigh
But with terror I cannot spurn
With terror wild and mute —
Is it remembrances, is it
Desires so vague half-known they flit
And not in thought nor sentiment take root?
My mind grows madder and more fit
In everything to catch and find
Meanings, resemblances defined
By not a form that thought can hit.
Smile not. Thou canst not comprehend!
What is this? What truth doth sleep
In these ravings without end
And beyond notion deep?
Laugh not. Know'st thou what madness is?
Wonder not. All is mysteries.
Ask not. For who can reply?
Weep for me, child, but do not love me
Who have in me too much that is above me,
Too much I cannot call “I”.
[21r]
Flashes of Madness – IV – 3.
Weep for the ruin of my mind
Weep rather, child, that things so deep should move me
To lose the clear thoughts that could prove me
One worthy of mankind.
Alexander Search
July 5th. 1908.
[22r]
Delirium.
Flashes of Madness.
V.
My child, I see thine eyes upon
A shadow, as cast by the wings
When a swift bird passes close by
The castle-window before the sun:
So through thy glance the shadows fly...
The souls of things dead and bygone
Haunt the appearances of living things.
Alexander Search.
December - 1905.
[1] feverish /too-local\
[2] weary /many\
[3] there /such\
[4] pickaxe /earthquake\
