Save Me From Madness, God
  
Save me from madness, God, I beg.  
No, I prefer the beggar's bag,  
Prefer to starve and toil.  
And not as if I praise my head,  
And not as if I were not glad  
To part with mind at all.  
  
If I were left alone and free,  
Oh, how fast I then would flee  
To wildness, thick and dim!  
I would sing songs in flaming fits  
And lose myself in fumes and bits  
Of mixed and lovely dreams.  
  
And I would listen to the sea,  
And, full of happiness, would see  
The heavens' empty flesh;  
And then I would be strong and free  
Like whirl that could dig up a lea  
And leave a forest smashed.  
  
Alas! The man whose mind is lost,  
Would be as awful as a curse,  
And very soon be locked,  
They'd put the fool in chains in rage,  
And, as a wild beast, through the cage  
They would you tease and mock.  
  
And in the night I would attend  
Not to the nightingale's clarinet,  
And hum of woods and plains -  
But to the cries of my inmates,  
And oaths of the jailers-rats,  
And squeak and ring of chains.  
  
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (1799-1837)