Marah :: :: University of Virginia Library

A land of luminous azure, glowing green,
And purple, and roseate gold, fill'd everywhere
With fervid colour and light; and all things seen
Clear thro' a lucid calm of cloudless air:

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The rippled sapphires of a summer sea,
Steep'd in the sunshine of a southern sky,
Washing warm bowery bays where tree to tree
Loose roses link'd with labyrinthine tie:

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Among them glimmer'd many a statued flight
Of marble stairs, beneath the twinkling gloss
Of blossom-laden boughs: and streams shone white,
Streaking green glens faint rainbows roof'd across:

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Seaward on sunny slopes a little town
Sparkled with terraced streets, where all day long
A glad-faced folk went sauntering up and down,
Whose talk was tuned to some soft foreign tongue:

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Foreign, at least, their tongue to me and you;
For you and I, dropp'd who knows how down here,
Were strangers from afar; and so we two
To one another had grown strangely near.

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All this I dream'd. Then woke, and with dim gaze
Saw, thro' the window-curtains half withdrawn,
Wan street-lamps film'd beneath a frozen haze,
And snow-flakes falling in the wintry dawn.

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And all at once, with a recurrent pain,
I realised how far away you were,
How near at hand my troubles! And then again
I slept, and dream'd. Ah, what a change was there!

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Nor sea nor land this time. No nature. All
Was artificial. For I stood, methought,
In a vast house of many mansions: hall
Succeeding hall: huge chambers, richly wrought,

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In clear communication each with each,
Thro' multitudes of doors set open wide,
And lit by windows so far out of reach
That they reveal'd not anything outside.

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Around me, here and there, and to and fro,
A wistful crowd continually went.
I knew them not. Nor did they seem to know
Each other. All were silent: each intent

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On his own business, or his own design.
No care had I to guess what that might be;
For I was equally intent on mine,
Heedless of others as they were of me.

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And conscious all the while, I knew not how,
That somewhere in this house, among that crowd,
I was to find you; tho' no sign to show
Where was vouchsaf'd me, and no guide allow'd.

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So, on, through those innumerable doors,
Door after door, in search of you I pass'd,
And over those interminable floors,
Floor after floor, with steps that hasten'd fast,

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And fiercely beating heart. But nowhere you,
Nor any trace of you! And time went by,
The light began to fail, my courage too,
And then I noticed all were gone but I.

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Gone! By what means? Impossible to guess!
For go, I could not. Each room only led
Into another room. A wilderness
Of rooms and rooms on all sides round me spread!

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To deep discouragement succeeded fear—
A fear lest I forever should remain
Wandering about in that mad maze of drear
And darkening halls! I knew my search was vain

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And that I should not ever find you there.
My one thought was to get away—get back
To the outer world, and nature, and fresh air.
Vain thought! The night, that crept upon my track,

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Was bringing with it who could say what strange
New horror? And still wandering, still astray,
I roam'd and roam'd that never-ending range
Of rooms and rooms, whence still there was no way.

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Door after door I tried. No door was shut.
But door to door succeeded, hall to hall.
None to my flight did any barrier put,
But egress was in turn denied by all.

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I turn'd, despairing, to the windows. These
Might favour flight, I hoped, if once attain'd.
But no! For they receded by degrees
As I advanced, and out of reach remain'd.

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At last I noticed, close at hand, what seem'd
A shut door in the wall. And “Here, perchance,
From this bewildering labyrinth,” I deem'd,
“May be some means for my deliverance!”

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I push'd the latchet, hope with fear and doubt
Contending. The door open'd. From the shelf
Of some dark cupboard it disclosed, sprang out
A corpse. I knew it. 'Twas my own dead Self.

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And my dead Self pursued me. Fast I fled.
But fast it follow'd. Its sepulchral breath
Clung like a cloud about me. It was dead,
And yet unnaturally alive in death.

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The horror and the terror of it grew
Until they reach'd the point of madness. Then
The whole wild vision from my sense withdrew,
And, spent and faint, I lay awake again;

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But still in fear lest on me sleep should glide,
And again fix me with its ghostly fetter,
A doubting hand I stretch'd to the bedside,
And there I found (thrice woe is me!) your letter.

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Your dreadful letter, with its heartless words!
A trance my life since that sick moment seems,
Whence never any waking hour affords
Release from days far worse than night's worst dreams.