Mad

Someone who is insane...

The sward was a spectral slab of blue 

In the chill November gloaming

The forest was e'en a darker hue

Marmoreal birches glowing.

A single figure approached the wood

He pulled his cloak still closer

Swiftly traversing the unwonted mud

So frenzied in his stagger

Monomaniacally taking to flight 

Stalked by his psychopathy 

Frenetically sweeping through the light

Heart a living timpani

Up a figment huntsman leapt

Fulguration lit his eye

Newfold madness seized his step

Low, flagitious clouds rolled by

Needles glowed beneath his feet

They seemed to be afire

In the shadows seemed to leap

Blazing o'er the quagmire 

Stumbling over root and vine

Tearing from the clutches

Of the gnarled eglantine

And autumn's naked birches

Faster faster into fright

Heedless of the bleeding gashes

Twilight fading into night

Switches springing back like lashes

Forest giving way to moor

Fleeing thru the grass and heather

Streaking past it like a blur

Wildly trav'ling hell for leather

His breath was rasping in his throat 

Furling forth like strangled clouds

Numb despite his overcoat

Darkness hanging like a shroud

Numb with cold and numb with terror 

Numb with dread of what's behind

Hunters not out in the air

But only in his fractured mind

Suddenly the ground was gone

Reappearing far beneath him

Nothing now but air beyond

And the cliff face: sharp, uneven.

Clawing, snatching, all in vain

Unimpeded in his fall

Of fox and hunters, none remain

But the corpse that housed them all

Fleeing the wraith that was himself.......

Author's Note

I like Tennyson.