Ay! many a craft we left abaft
Upon that haunted sea;
But never a hulk that clewed a sail,
Or waved a hand, or answered hail,
And never a man saw we.
At last we came where—pouring flame—
In darkness and in storm,
A vast volcano westward reared
An awful summit, lava-seared,
Like some terrific arm.
And we could feel beneath our keel
The ocean throb and swell,
As if the Earthquake there uncoiled
Its monster bulk, or Titans toiled
At the red heart of Hell.
Like madmen now we turned our prow
North, towards an ocean weird
Of Northern Lights and icy blasts;
And for ten moons with reeling masts
And leaking hold we steered.
Then black as blood through streaming scud
Land loomed above our boom,
A land of iron gulfs and crags
And cataracts, like wind-tossed rags,
And caverns lost in gloom.
And burning white on every height,
And white in every cave,
A naked spirit, with a flame,
Now gleamed, now vanished; went and came
Above the whining wave.
No mortal thing of foot or wing
Made glad its steep and strand;
But voices, voices seemingly—
Vague voices of the sky and sea—
Peopled the demon land.
Yea, everywhere, in earth and air,
A lamentation wept;
That, gathering strength above, below,
Now like a mighty wind of woe,
Around the island swept.
And in that sound, it seemed, was bound
All life's despair of art;
The bitterness of joy that died;
The anguish of faith's crucified;
And love that broke its heart.
The ghost it seemed of all we'd dreamed,
Of all we had desired;
That—turned a curse, an empty cry—
With wailing words went trailing by
In hope's dead robes attired.