The City of Dreadful Night | Page 3

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 clear;?Mad rage had swallowed fear.
As I came through the desert thus it was,?As I came through the desert: By the sea?She knelt and bent above that senseless me; 90 Those lamp-drops fell upon my white brow there,?She tried to cleanse them with her tears and hair;?She murmured words of pity, love, and woe,?Shee heeded not the level rushing flow:?And mad with rage and fear, 95