Breaking in thunderous knocks, a pale reflex of mine.
Slowly before my wondering eyes the door
Broke in a thousand fragments to the floor;
Disclosing a gaping orifice with rusty mildewed rim
The entrance to a stairway, torturous, long and grim,
Whose polished steps trailed from the sight to denser gloom within.
Then passing ’twixt two monoliths engraved one “Death,” one “Sin.”
I heard in the chasm below me the Marid’s enchanted hymn,
And I felt the chill of their icy breath,
As they dully intoned that Song of Death:—