Listen...
There is a knocking in the skull,
An endless silent shout
Of something beating on a wall,
And crying, Let me out.
That solitary prisoner
Will never hear reply,
No comrade in eternity
Can hear the frantic cry.
No heart can share the terror
That haunts his monstrous dark;
The light that filters through the chinks
No other eye can mark.
When flesh is linked with eager flesh,
And words run warm and full,
I think that he is lonliest then,
The captive in the skull.
Caught in a mesh of living veins,
In cell of padded bone,
He lonliest is when he pretends
That he is not alone.
We'd free the incarcerate race of man
That such a doom endures
Could only you unlock my skull,
Or I creep into yours.
