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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
  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:
  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.
 
 
  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,
  "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;
  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?
 
 
  He snarled, What thing is this which apes a soul,
  And would find entrance to our gulf of dole
  Without the payment of the settled toll?
 
 
  Outside the gate he showed an open chest:
  Here pay their entrance fees the souls unblest;
  Cast in some hope, you enter with the rest.
 
 
  This is Pandora's box; whose lid shall shut,
  And Hell-gate too, when hopes have filled it; but
  They are so thin that it will never glut.
 
 
  I stood a few steps backwards, desolate;
  And watched the spirits pass me to their fate,
  And fling off hope, and enter at the gate.
 
 
  When one casts off a load he springs upright,
  Squares back his shoulders, breathes will all his might,
  And briskly paces forward strong and light:
 
 
  But these, as if they took some burden, bowed;
  The whole frame sank; however strong and proud
  Before, they crept in quite infirm and cowed.
 
 
  And as they passed me, earnestly from each
  A morsel of his hope I did beseech,
  To pay my entrance; but all mocked my speech.
 
 
  No one would cede a little of his store,
  Though knowing that in instants three or four
  He must resign the whole for evermore.
 
 
  So I returned.  Our destiny is fell;
  For in this Limbo we must ever dwell,
  Shut out alike from heaven and Earth and Hell.
 
 
  The other sighed back, Yea; but if we grope
  With care through all this Limbo's dreary scope,
  We yet may pick up some minute lost hope;
 
 
  And sharing it between us, entrance win,
  In spite of fiends so jealous for gross sin:
  Let us without delay our search begin.
 

VII

 
  Some say that phantoms haunt those shadowy streets,
    And mingle freely there with sparse mankind;
  And tell of ancient woes and black defeats,
    And murmur mysteries in the grave enshrined:
  But others think them visions of illusion,
  Or even men gone far in self-confusion;
    No man there being wholly sane in mind.
 
 
  And yet a man who raves, however mad,
    Who bares his heart and tells of his own fall,
  Reserves some inmost secret good or bad:
    The phantoms have no reticence at all:
  The nudity of flesh will blush though tameless
  The extreme nudity of bone grins shameless,
    The unsexed skeleton mocks shroud and pall.
 
 
  I have seen phantoms there that were as men
    And men that were as phantoms flit and roam;
  Marked shapes that were not living to my ken,
    Caught breathings acrid as with Dead Sea foam:
  The City rests for man so weird and awful,
  That his intrusion there might seem unlawful,
    And phantoms there may have their proper home.
 

VIII

 
  While I still lingered on that river-walk,
    And watched the tide as black as our black doom,
  I heard another couple join in talk,
    And saw them to the left hand in the gloom
  Seated against an elm bole on the ground,
  Their eyes intent upon the stream profound.
 
 
  "I never knew another man on earth
    But had some joy and solace in his life,
    Some chance of triumph in the dreadful strife:
  My doom has been unmitigated dearth."
 
 
  "We gaze upon the river, and we note
  The various vessels large and small that float,
  Ignoring every wrecked and sunken boat."
 
 
  "And yet I asked no splendid dower, no spoil
    Of sway or fame or rank or even wealth;
    But homely love with common food and health,
  And nightly sleep to balance daily toil."
 
 
  "This all-too-humble soul would arrogate
  Unto itself some signalising hate
  From the supreme indifference of Fate!"
 
 
  "Who is most wretched in this dolorous place?
    I think myself; yet I would rather be
    My miserable self than He, than He
  Who formed such creatures to His own disgrace.
 
 
  "The vilest thing must be less vile than Thou
    From whom it had its being, God and Lord!
    Creator of all woe and sin!  abhorred
  Malignant and implacable!  I vow
 
 
  "That not for all Thy power furled and unfurled,
    For all the temples to Thy glory built,
    Would I assume the ignominious guilt
  Of having made such men in such a world."
 
 
  "As if a Being, God or Fiend, could reign,
  At once so wicked, foolish and insane,
  As to produce men when He might refrain!
 
 
  "The world rolls round for ever like a mill;
  It grinds out death and life and good and ill;
  It has no purpose, heart or mind or will.
 
 
  "While air of Space and Time's full river flow
  The mill must blindly whirl unresting so:
  It may be wearing out, but who can know?
 
 
  "Man might know one thing were his sight less dim;
  That it whirls not to suit his petty whim,
  That it is quite indifferent to him.
 
 
  "Nay, does it treat him harshly as he saith?
  It grinds him some slow years of bitter breath,
  Then grinds him back into eternal death."
 

IX

 
  It is full strange to him who hears and feels,
    When wandering there in some deserted street,
  The booming and the jar of ponderous wheels,
    The trampling clash of heavy ironshod feet:
  Who in this Venice of the Black Sea rideth?
  Who in this city of the stars abideth
    To buy or sell as those in daylight sweet?
 
 
  The rolling thunder seems to fill the sky
    As it comes on; the horses snort and strain,
  The harness jingles, as it passes by;
    The hugeness of an overburthened wain:
  A man sits nodding on the shaft or trudges
  Three parts asleep beside his fellow-drudges:
    And so it rolls into the night again.
 
 
  What merchandise?  whence, whither, and for whom?
    Perchance it is a Fate-appointed hearse,
  Bearing away to some mysterious tomb
    Or Limbo of the scornful universe
  The joy, the peace, the life-hope, the abortions
  Of all things good which should have been our portions,
    But have been strangled by that City's curse.