Why must I create and create?
What Lernian Hydra[i] with unresting mania
Impels my pen, compels my mind
To feed and feed and sate
Its many mouths— its all-hungry yearning bellies?
To root, delve, to rummage and to find
This thought, that truth, this hue and tint
Until the very wrecked timbre of my being
Reels and quivers like a noisy mint,
Coining words and dreams and potent jellies?—
And no peace, no peace for me—
No cooling wind, no shade of tamarind tree
To give me respite from this surging thing;
No wizard-wand from out the burning day
To touch my spirit and wake me free.
[i] A Lernian [or Lernaean] Hydra, from Greek mythology, was a monstrous serpent with numerous heads that attacked with poisonous venom. As one of its head was immortal it was, ultimately, indestructible.
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