But when the third day waned we came, at last,
Unto the shores of some dread, lonely sea,
That gloomed to north and night, and far beyond,
Where ruined straits and headlands loomed and sank,
There seemed the awful endings of the world.
Then spake the leader, “Let us go not yet,
But stay a little ere we turn us south,
Perchance, poor souls, they might be somewhere here.”
And then to me, “You go, for you are young
And strong, and life throbs quickest in your veins,
And you have eyes more strong to see, for ours
Are dimmed by the dread frost-mists of this land;
And creep out there beyond yon gleaming ledge,
And bring me word of what you there may see.
And if you meet no sign of mast or sail,
Or hull or wreck, or mark of living soul,
Then we will turn our faces to the south;
For this great ocean’s vastness hems us in,
And death here nightly creeps from strand to strand,
And binds with girth of black the gleaming world.”
Then, whispering “Madness, madness,” to the dark,
I crept me fearful o’er that gleaming ledge,
And saw but night and awful gulfs of dark,
And weird ice-mountains looming desolate there,
And far beyond the vastness of that sea.
And then—O God, why died I not that hour?—
Amid the gleaming floes far up that shore,
So far it seemed that man’s foot scarce could go,
The certain, tapering outline of a mast,
And one small patch of rag; and then I felt
No man could ever live to reach that place,
And horror seized me of that haunted world,
That I should die there and be froze for aye,
Amid the ice-core of its awful heart.
Then crept I back, the weak ghost of a life,
A miserable, shaking, coffined fear,
And spake, “I saw but ice and winds and dark,
And the dread vastness of that desolate sea.”
Again he spake, “Creep out once more and look;
Perchance your sight was misled by the gleam.”
And then once more I crept out on that ledge,
And saw again the night and awful dark,
And that poor beckoning mast that haunts me yet;
And as I lay those moments seemed to grow,
As men have felt in looking down long years,
And there I chose ’twixt evil and the good,
And took the evil; then began my hell,
And back I crept with that black lie on lips,
And spake again, “I only saw the night,
And those weird mountains and the awful deep.”
At that he moaned and spake, “Poor souls! poor souls!
Then they are doomed if ever men were doomed.”
Whereat a sudden, great auroral flame
Filled all the heaven, lighting wastes and sea,
And came a wondrous shock across the world,
Like sounds of far-off battle where hosts die,
As if God thundered back mine awful lie,
And I fell in a heap where all was black.
When next I lived, we were full three days south,
And two had died upon that dreadful march;
The memory came, and I went laughing mad,
But kept mine awful secret to this hour.
No, priest, you can do nothing; pain like mine
Must smoulder out in its own agony,
Till there be nought but ashes at the last.
But something ’mid the pauses of the dark
Doth teach me that I am not all alone,
For I have dreamed in my dread, maddest hour,
An awful shadow, blacker than my black,
Went ever with me. Hearken to me now:
I never felt a hand or saw a face,
I never knew a comfort more than sleep,
The winters they are only barren snows,
And age is hard, and death waits at the last.
But I have felt in some dim, shapeless way,
As memories long remembered after youth,
That back of all there is some mighty will,
Beyond the little dreams that we are here,
Beyond the misery of our days and years,
Beyond the outmost system’s outmost rim,
Where wrinkled suns in awful blackness swim,
A wondrous mercy that is working still.