So down that crystal shaft into the poisonous mine
I sped for charity to seek and save,—and those I sought fled from me.
At length, I spied, far distant, a trembling withered dwarf
Who crouched beneath the cloak of a tall and spectral mourner:
Then I knew Cowardice and Gloom, and followed them on in darkness,
Guided by their rustling robes and moans and muffled cries,
Until in a suffocating pit the wretched pair had perished,—
And lo, their whitening bones were shaping out an epitaph of Failure.
So I saw that despondency was death, and flung my burdens from me,
And, lightened by that effort, I was raised above the world;