When you get tired of reading all the beautiful words by lousy human beings, and come to the end of your patience with the voluminous indeed inexhaustible mediocrities of goodness, what to do? I suggest – I don’t know. Let him think. And if there are no words to this place give him back the [...]

Where it says snow read teeth-marks of a virgin Where it says knife read you passed through my bones like a police-whistle Where it says table read horse Where it says horse read my migrant’s bundle Apples are to remain apples Each time a hat appears think of Isaac Newton reading the Old Testament Remove [...]

Labour is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul. Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the [...]

According to Christopher Smart’s entry in Wikipedia — which notes, by the way, that it uses text from the 11th edition of the Britannica, now in the public domain — Smart had begun showing symptoms of mental illness by 1751. “Smart was wont to accost passers-by in St James’ Park and demand that they kneel [...]