The City of Dreadful Night | Page 3

burn along the silent streets,
Even when moonlight
silvers empty squares
The dark holds countless lanes and close
retreats;
But when the night its sphereless mantle wears
The open
spaces yawn with gloom abysmal, 5 The sombre mansions loom
immense and dismal,
The lanes are black as subterranean lairs.
And soon the eye a strange new vision learns:
The night remains for
it as dark and dense,
Yet clearly in this darkness it discerns 10 As in
the daylight with its natural sense;
Perceives a shade in shadow not
obscurely,
Pursues a stir of black in blackness surely,
Sees spectres
also in the gloom intense.
The ear, too, with the silence vast and deep 15 Becomes familiar
though unreconciled;
Hears breathings as of hidden life asleep,
And
muffled throbs as of pent passions wild,
Far murmurs, speech of pity
or derision;
but all more dubious than the things of vision, 20 So that
it knows not when it is beguiled.
No time abates the first despair and awe,
But wonder ceases soon; the
weirdest thing
Is felt least strange beneath the lawless law
Where

Death-in-Life is the eternal king; 25 Crushed impotent beneath this
reign of terror,
Dazed with mysteries of woe and error,
The soul is
too outworn for wondering.
IV
He stood alone within the spacious square
Declaiming from the
central grassy mound,
With head uncovered and with streaming hair,

As if large multitudes were gathered round:
A stalwart shape, the
gestures full of might, 5 The glances burning with unnatural light:--
As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the
desert: All was black,
In heaven no single star, on earth no track;
A
brooding hush without a stir or note, 10 The air so thick it clotted in my
throat;
And thus for hours; then some enormous things
Swooped
past with savage cries and clanking wings:
But I strode on austere;

No hope could have no fear. 15
As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the
desert: Eyes of fire
Glared at me throbbing with a starved desire;

The hoarse and heavy and carnivorous breath
Was hot upon me from
deep jaws of death; 20 Sharp claws, swift talons, fleshless fingers cold

Plucked at me from the bushes, tried to hold:
But I strode on
austere;
No hope could have no fear.
As I came through the desert thus it was, 25 As I came through the
desert: Lo you, there,
That hillock burning with a brazen glare;

Those myriad dusky flames with points a-glow
Which writhed and
hissed and darted to and fro;
A Sabbath of the Serpents, heaped
pell-mell 30 For Devil's roll-call and some fete of Hell:
Yet I strode
on austere;
No hope could have no fear.
As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the
desert: Meteors ran 35 And crossed their javelins on the black sky-span;

The zenith opened to a gulf of flame,
The dreadful thunderbolts

jarred earth's fixed frame;
The ground all heaved in waves of fire that
surged
And weltered round me sole there unsubmerged: 40 Yet I
strode on austere;
No hope could have no fear.
As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the
desert: Air once more,
And I was close upon a wild sea-shore; 45
Enormous cliffs arose on either hand,
The deep tide thundered up a
league-broad strand;
White foambelts seethed there, wan spray swept
and flew;
The sky broke, moon and stars and clouds and blue:
Yet I
strode on austere; 50 No hope could have no fear.
As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the
desert: On the left
The sun arose and crowned a broad crag-cleft;

There stopped and burned out black, except a rim, 55 A bleeding
eyeless socket, red and dim;
Whereon the moon fell suddenly
south-west,
And stood above the right-hand cliffs at rest:
Yet I
strode on austere;
No hope could have no fear. 60
As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the
desert: From the right
A shape came slowly with a ruddy light;
A
woman with a red lamp in her hand,
Bareheaded and barefooted on
that strand; 65 O desolation moving with such grace!
O anguish with
such beauty in thy face!
I fell as on my bier,
Hope travailed with
such fear.
As I came through the desert thus it was, 70 As I came through the
desert: I was twain,
Two selves distinct that cannot join again;
One
stood apart and knew but could not stir,
And watched the other stark
in swoon and her;
And she came on, and never turned aside, 75
Between such sun and moon and roaring tide:
And as she came more
near
My soul grew mad with fear.
As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the
desert: Hell is mild 80 And piteous matched with that accursed wild;


A large black sign was on her breast that bowed,
A broad black band
ran down her snow-white shroud;
That lamp she held was her own
burning heart,
Whose blood-drops trickled step by step apart: 85 The
mystery was