and feel the dread agony of parting. Their souls feel for one another as the seas for the land.
When hand stretched longing for hand, And that strange, wild cry of the soul; As the feeble sea feels for the land, Or a racer far, far from the goal;— So we, ere we drank of death’s dole, Knew the black night that hope never spanned.
But he knows the hour has come,
Then I knew as I looked on her face, (Black, black is the night and the rain,) Sweet as a flower in that place, And heard the hoarse roar of the main; That this was the hour for us twain, The last, bitter end of the race.
and the anguish at the gate of the nevermore.
And I gripped her as man only grips The last gift that God has for him, And lived with my lips on her lips An age that was anguished and dim; And time was as bubbles that swim, Or the hailing of out-faring ships.
They plead in vain with time while their doom waits.
We pleaded and haggled with time, With time who was haggard and hoar; And met the dread hell of our crime, While fate stood there at the door;— With our doom in his hand he upbore, Till I heard each second’s beat chime.
He feels that they died there. He is but a lost wreck on the coast of the ages ere the evil had power.
And I know now we died in that hour:— I am all but the ghost of a man, A mariner stranded ashore On some continent out of God’s plan, Made before misery began, Or evil got men in its power.