To human hunger, human thirst

Infinite hell did loom;

Infinite bale to vision burst

In tracts of nebulous bloom;

And life through peril, lorn, accurst,

Passed on from doom to doom.

The depths were full of throes unknown,

Weird wastes of vomited fire;

Wild mists of thunderous flame were blown

Athwart eclipse; I heard the groan

Of travailing worlds stupendous thrown

Through chaos to expire:

My spirit, cowed with vastness dire,

Gazed, poised in space,—alone,—

Alone as a haunted life that lies

On the death-brink when a dread past cries,

And the live dark burns with eternal eyes.

Rang, terror-wrung from shrivelled pride:

"Oh loneliest of the dead,

Thou with the deeply riven side,

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