HELL slowly unfolds her adamantine door;
Hell hath her gates unfolded. Lo! as it were
A Mausoleum wide as Chaos, or
The Ninth of Space, an infinite Sepulchre,
Yet walled about; the Ward of Death and Sin; Not silent;-Sleep, with Hope, is alien here.
Lo, shadowy Thrones, and Phantoms there-within Inaugurate, crowned strangely; Spectres vast
As of blue ice compact, and making din
As shadowy, phantom-sounds; their voice a blast
Heard o'er the polar wild's vacuity,
That goes unquestioned on, lost and aghast,
Seeking for aught to guide its voyage by,
One barren stump, a solitary stone,
Half shriek-half whistle, and finds no reply.
Half-raised, expectant, on his icy throne,
Each in his cell; his eyes' impatient glow,
Now glancing on the desert, and now gone,
Like Boreas' light on Hecla's haunted brow,
Glazing his aspect with a ghostly gleam;
Here twinkling now... now there... evanished now
From the void forehead, like a transient dream;
The void cold forehead, and the fitful light
Of massy and monarchal diadem
Now beamless; and, all dusk as the sad night,
The regal pall hangs the broad shoulder o'er,
Frozen in gorgeous folds, and moveless quite.
Burns now that starless air intenselier frore...
Heard ye not hoofs on that ice-pavement clang,
In rampant fury or triumph? Hark! once more,
The Voice of Storms through all that region rang;
Near and more near,.. the voice of many storms, ..
Whom heralding? Gaunt Death! the Heralds sang.
With Pestilence and Plague, with phantom-forms, He comes,... pale Rider of the pallid Steed,... Trampling alike o'er Warriors, Worlds and Worms;
Himself chief Victor. From his mouth proceed Vaunt and defiance, while his blasting breath Parcheth with cold the flakier air.
The crowning Deed, 'tis done! the deed of Death!
Ye Demigods, whose place on earth is blank,
Whose fame and name no poet uttereth;
Ye Desolators of heroic rank;
Own your Outdoer,... shamed and silent be!
Who ruleth the down-rushing Avalanch?
Loosed by a whisper, or a breath too free,
Descending in its brightness terribly,
With the noise of torrents... it obeyeth me.
I ride upon the Glacier, and do fly,
Yea, I come flying on the winged wind;
And my pavilion of the snow pile I,
And wonne among the mountains, 'till I mind
To come abroad; then I wend on my way
Precipitous in lightning, though not tined
From heaven surcharged, but kindling, as it may,
About my secret place, where royally
Dwelleth the hiding of my power, whose sway,
Felt only, doth abide invisibly,
And is in that it is, like to a god
Which lives but in his proper energy.
The floods leap under me, and foam aloud,
And bear me onward, gathering as I
And armies come unto me from the cloud.
I triumph in my chariot of snow...
Forth utter I my voice,... the thunder peals:
Forth from my sanctuary I rush, and, lo,
Forests confess me, nor the vale conceals
My presence,... and the village vanisheth;
Ruin to my pleased ear man's Shriek reveals,
Silence, Depopulation.-I am Death!
A home in Air have I. Winds hear my voice, The four winds answer it with all their breath.— -Lo! the Tornado doth aloud rejoice
In his ubiquity, and cometh out
With sudden and exaggerated noise;
Scattering his hurtling arrows all about
Amid the sky, the while his iron shoon
Cottage and Palace trample; .. with a shout,
Then whirls him in his dusty car aboon,
As with the ruin he would blot out heaven,
And quench the glorious sun,-as I shall soon.
And men are hurled into the clouds, and driven
As in a witch-dance, round, and aye around,
And perish in the flashes of the leven;
swoop, and strangle them in that dire swound, For sport;-and thus I gambol merrily.
My way is on the Waters. Of the Drowned
The last spasm makes the globule, wherewith I
Take innocent delight, and think when this
Strong hand shall, with the same facility,
Confound in one disruption, one abyss,
A bubble and a Universe. I dance
Around the circles of the Vortices,
And see the ship go down in a strong trance,
And hear the shriek,-one, yet how manifold!
There, where the steeds o' the Tempest foam and
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