A Fool, A Foul Thing, A Distressful Lunatic
With webs of cool
Chain mail and his stout heart, is not the gander
Mocked, and ignorantly designated yet,
To play the fool?
“Egyptian vultures clean as cherubim,
All ivory and jet,” are they most foul?
And nature’s child,
That most precocious water bird, the loon—why
Is he foremost in the madman’s alphabet;
Why is he styled
In folly’s catalogue, distressful lunatic?
From Observations (The Dial Press, Inc., 1924) by Marianne Moore. Copyright © The Dial Press, Inc. This poem is in the public domain.