Classic Poem

1

  I N a way no man can tell
  I heard the tolling of a bell
And stunn'd and stricken downward into nether space I fell;
To a sphere
  Most curst and drear,
 And for the damn'd ordained,
Where feeble in the rayless air they bide as souls enchain'd.

2

Only unavailing
  Vacant spectres round me paling,
  Thro' the dismal gloom abysmal
  Gape and grin upon me, railing
  With a sound of silly laughter,
  For they greet me all with laughter;
But oh! they vanish wailing from the Echoes that come after—
  From things that rise enormously
  Out of Nothing—seizing me
 In a slow unfolding Horror of Infinity;
  Yet within the awful coil
  Something still survives to foil
  The Horror ere it quite attains
  To my soul—and then it wanes
Into Nothingness again—and still one hope remains;
 When the Horror shudders down one starry hope remains
 To piece the evil darkness thro' and loosen all my chains.

3

  Athwart the gloom
 In pale magnificence uploom
  Titanic walls;
And lo! my doom is riven by a radiance from those walls;—
 By the ruby-tinted hue
 Of a radiance rolling through
A lone heart-shapen window carven high upon those walls.

4

  Then down the far-enrhythm'd deep
  Sounds of passing sweetness sweep
That lull me into dreaming and the semblance of a sleep.
Ethereal
I hear a call
  In the tranced interval
 Cleaving thro' Oblivion and lifting from its thrall;
  And I reach the lustrous edge
  Of that lonely window-ledge
To peer among the marvels of the rising carnival.

5

But ah! despite
Satanic splendors opening in the heart of endless night—
 Despite the masque and pageantry,
 And music string'd in wizardry
  Of ways and modes unknown—
 Down the ruby-corridor'd,
 Ebon-vault'd, ebon-floor'd,
 Halls of Eblis unexplor'd,
  I strive alone to see
 The eidolon of one ador'd
 Whose call uplifted me:
 And those chasmal, lost, fantasmal
  Halls of Eblis unexplor'd
 Yield to me at length the sight
 Of One apparell'd all in white,
Thro' the wide Pavilion gliding with the wine of red delight:—
 One apparell'd as a woman—
 Yearning to me as a woman—
 With the love I dream'd of
  Once—when human.

6

   Then elate
  I cling and wait
 For the ransom necromantic yet to free me from this fate:
  But alas! the incense curling
  From before her keeps unfurling
Dim narcotic veils between us till I swoon intoxicate:
  From the luring and the lumen
  Of her beauty, more than human,
 Backward thro' the demon deep I swoon intoxicate—
  Beyond recall I swoon and fall
 Into the black Oblivion that now devoureth all.