APPROACHING

With dragging steps severe, like creeping hate,

Through the black silence of my conscious brain

I hear madness advance, and feel with pain

The ground it treads on writhe and palpitate.

How to avoid its coming soon or late?

How not to feel the mind's grand vainly strain,

But rooted lie awaiting its dread reign,

That cometh inopposable as Fate?

If only madness came as lightning doth -

Suddenly - that were the least greatest ill...

But oh! to feel with consciousness' clear sight

Reason's day go on to twilight in swift growth,

And the twilight of reason, pale and chill,

Darken towards impenetrable night.