Shall This Be That Frenzy?

Shall this be that phrenzy I so oft do read?
This loathing of the common and the known,
This sund’ring from the rout, this sprout of seed
That yieldeth calm to me, to me alone,

When I do ink the final mark in haste
And straight forget the sonnet in its whole.
I break the fetters of the daily waste,
In e’ry span unloos’d, unclaim’d by soul.

As if I stood without, mine eyes unshut,
To slap meself and force the slumb’ring breath,
To sup, to speak with any one. But what
Would be the cause? What gain in such bequeath?

Shall this be that strange temper they did see
When not e’en yet a lintel I could trace,
Nor scratch upon a home mine own degree?
’Twas I was blind and deaf to such a grace

That ev’ry heel upon my spine, in truth,
Was but a twitch, a man-born dread accurst,
The dread of other, primal and crude
Since first the dawn did open up the first.

Now do I lean and sing of it, for naught,
Remaineth save to yield to this desire,
The lusts, the fancies of a sever’d thought
That snores beneath the desk, content in mire.

Caress’d I am by groan of the creaking quill;
It peereth forth, that pitch-hued gremlin,
As if to question if this awak’ning will
Change the course, or pass, as all them did,

And become yet a chant, another guise,
A painted image reeking of dismay?
Well do I know. What cause to feign disguise?
The sole strewn stones be folios yet to lay.

They be the sole I tread, if aught I tread:
These paths of fleeting joy and vanity.
I deem’d to scrawl to cast some devil dead,
Yet haply I the fiend in prison be.