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 flow5Against 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:10These 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.15That 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,20"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;25First 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? 30He 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; 35Cast 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;40And 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: 45But 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, 50To 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;55For 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; 60And sharing it between us, entrance win, In spite of fiends so jealous for gross sin:
Let us without delay our search begin.
