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.