AFTER

Bands broken, cords loosened, and all

Set free. Well, I know

That I turned my cold face to the wall,

Was silent, strove, gasped, then there fell

A numbness, a faintness, a spell

Of blindness, hung as a pall,

On me, falling low,

And a far fading sound of a knell.

Then a fierce stretching of hands

In gloom; and my feet,

Treading tremulous over hard sands;

A wind that wailed wearily slow,

A plashing of waters below,

A twilight on bleak lone lands,

Spread out; and a sheet

Of the moaning sea shallows aflow.

Then a steep highway that leads

Somewhere, cold, austere;

And I follow a shadow that heeds

My coming, and points, not in wrath,

Out over: we tread the sere path

Up to the summit; recedes

All gloom; and at last

The beauty a flower-land hath.