Could stretch its hands out, even in farewell.

And all that I could see around me there

Was my own smoking torchlight, walls of rock

And awful rifts where other caverns yawned.

And all that I could hear was my own steps

Echoing through endless darkness, on and on.

My thread ran out. My torch was burning low,

When, through the darkness, I became aware

Of something darker, looming up in front;

Solid as rock, and yet more strange and wild