Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE EPIPHANY OF THE MAD by JOHN COWPER POWYS

First Line: I AM THE VOICE OF THE OUTCAST THINGS
Last Line: APPROACH AND CLEANSED ARE.
Subject(s): ALIENATION (SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY); DEATH; MOON; SINGING & SINGERS; VOICES; ESTRANGEMENT; OUTCASTS; DEAD, THE;
I am the voice of the outcast things,
The refuse and the drift.
What the waves wash up and the rivers spurn
And the Golgothas of the cities burn,
For these my song I lift.

I sing in dust; I sing in mire;
I sing in slag and silt;
I sing in the reek of the rubble-fire;
I sing where sewers are spilt;

I sing where the paupers have their grave;
I sing where abortions lie;
I sing where the mad-house nettles wave;
I sing where the hearse goes by.

And all my tune is taught by the Moon;
For the Moon looks down on all;
And the song I sing of each outcast thing
Is a mad Moon-madrigal.

But all my thoughts as I sing this tune
Are about a little star
That soon or late, that late or soon,
The evilest things beneath the moon
Approach and cleansed are.



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