V

  How he arrives there none can clearly know;
    Athwart the mountains and immense wild tracts,
  Or flung a waif upon that vast sea-flow,
    Or down the river's boiling cataracts:
  To reach it is as dying fever-stricken                      5
  To leave it, slow faint birth intense pangs quicken;
    And memory swoons in both the tragic acts.

  But being there one feels a citizen;
    Escape seems hopeless to the heart forlorn:
  Can Death-in-Life be brought to life again?                 10
    And yet release does come; there comes a morn
  When he awakes from slumbering so sweetly
  That all the world is changed for him completely,
    And he is verily as if new-born.

  He scarcely can believe the blissful change,                15
    He weeps perchance who wept not while accurst;
  Never again will he approach the range
    Infected by that evil spell now burst:
  Poor wretch!  who once hath paced that dolent city
  Shall pace it often, doomed beyond all pity,                20
    With horror ever deepening from the first.

  Though he possess sweet babes and loving wife,
    A home of peace by loyal friendships cheered,
  And love them more than death or happy life,
    They shall avail not; he must dree his weird;             25
  Renounce all blessings for that imprecation,
  Steal forth and haunt that builded desolation,
    Of woe and terrors and thick darkness reared.

                                    VI

  I sat forlornly by the river-side,
    And watched the bridge-lamps glow like golden stars
  Above the blackness of the swelling tide,
    Down which they struck rough gold in ruddier bars;
  And heard the heave and plashing of the flow                5
  Against the wall a dozen feet below.

  Large elm-trees stood along that river-walk;
    And under one, a few steps from my seat,
  I heard strange voices join in stranger talk,
    Although I had not heard approaching feet:                10
  These bodiless voices in my waking dream
  Flowed dark words blending with sombre stream:—

  And you have after all come back; come back.
  I was about to follow on your track.
  And you have failed: our spark of hope is black.            15

  That I have failed is proved by my return:
  The spark is quenched, nor ever more will burn,
  But listen; and the story you shall learn.

  I reached the portal common spirits fear,
  And read the words above it, dark yet clear,                20
  "Leave hope behind, all ye who enter here:"

  And would have passed in, gratified to gain
  That positive eternity of pain
  Instead of this insufferable inane.

  A demon warder clutched me, Not so fast;                    25
  First leave your hopes behind!—But years have passed
  Since I left all behind me, to the last:

  You cannot count for hope, with all your wit,
  This bleak despair that drives me to the Pit:
  How could I seek to enter void of it?                       30

  He snarled, What thing is this which apes a soul,
  And would find entrance to our gulf