Читать книгу: «The City of Dreadful Night», страница 2

III

 
  Although lamps 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,
  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
    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
    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,
    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;
  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,
  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,
  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.
 
 
  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;
  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,
  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
  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
  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:
    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;
  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;
    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,
  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.
 
 
  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;
  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,
  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,
  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
  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:
    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;
  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,
    I stood stonebound so near.
 
 
  As I came through the desert thus it was,
  As I came through the desert: When the tide
  Swept up to her there kneeling by my side,
  She clasped that corpse-like me, and they were borne
  Away, and this vile me was left forlorn;
  I know the whole sea cannot quench that heart,
  Or cleanse that brow, or wash those two apart:
    They love; their doom is drear,
    Yet they nor hope nor fear;
    But I, what do I here?
 

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
  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?
    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,
    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,
    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;
  Renounce all blessings for that imprecation,
  Steal forth and haunt that builded desolation,
    Of woe and terrors and thick darkness reared.