• Around my brain there is a chain, and over my fevered soul
    A darkess like that solemn gloom which once through Egypt stole;

    Sometimes i feel, but know not why, a fire within me burn,
    And visions fierce and terrible, pursue wherever I turn;
    But when my phrenzied fit is over, a dreary hour comes on,

    A consciousness of unknown things, of reson overthrown
    Cold runs my blood from vein to vein- all vacant is my eye,
    and in my ears a sound of death, and dread eternity!

    Then one by one my thoughts left me, and from my grated cell
    I gaze upon the mountain fir, the steep and woody dell;

    Till, lost in unknown agony, I laughed as if in mirth,
    Or shuddering welcomed back the gloom of hell begun on earth

    The madness first his scorching hand held over my withered brain
    And oh it was a deadly touch that never cool again.

    And as I slept in my padded cell
    I wondered far and wide

    I was roaming through fields and flowers
    And felt with each step new joys

    But I woke with a sigh that memory
    Should revive what time destroys