One Hour to Madness and Joy

One hour to madness and joy! O furious! O confine me not! / (What is this that frees me so in storms? / What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?) // O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man! / O savage and tender achings! (I bequeath them to you my children, / I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.) // O to be yielded to you whoever you are, and you to be yielded to me in / defiance of the world! / O to return to Paradise! O bashful and feminine! / O to draw you to me, to plant on you for the first time the lips of a / determin’d man. // O the puzzle, the thrice-tied knot, the deep and dark pool, all untied and illumin’d! / O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last! / To be absolv’d from previous ties and conventions, I from mine and you from yours! / To find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of Nature! / To have the gag remov’d from one’s mouth! / To have the feeling to-day or any day I am sufficient as I am. // O something unprov’d! something in a trance! / To escape utterly from others’ anchors and holds! / To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous! / To court destruction with taunts, with invitations! / To ascend, to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me! / To rise thither with my inebriate soul! / To be lost if it must be so! / To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom! / With one brief hour of madness and joy.