Nemesis

Thro' the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber,Past the wan-moon'd abysses of night,I have liv'd o'er my lives without number,I have sounded all things with my sight;And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright.

I have whirl'd with the earth at the dawning,When the sky was a vaporous flame;I have seen the dark universe yawningWhere the black planets roll without aim,Where they roll in their horror unheeded, without knowledge or lustre or name.

I have drifted o'er seas without ending,Under sinister grey-clouded skiesThat the many-fork'd lightning is rending,That resound with hysterical cries;With the moans of invisible daemons that out of the green water rise.

I have plunged like a deer thro' the archesOf the hoary primordial grove,Where the oaks feel the presence that marchesAnd stalks on where no spirit dares rove,And I flee from a thing that surrounds me, and leers thro' dead branches above.

I have stumbled by cave-riddled mountainsThat rise barren and bleak from the plain,I have drunk of the frog-foetid fountainsThat ooze down to the marsh and the main;And in hot curs'd tarns I have seen things I care not to gaze on again.

I have scann'd the vast ivy-clad palace,I have trod its untenanted hall,Where the moon writhing up from the valleysShows the tapestried things on the wall;Strange figures discordantly woven, that I cannot endure to recall.

I have peer'd from the casement in wonderAt the mouldering meadows around,At the many-roof'd village laid underThe curse of a grave-girdled ground;And from rows of white urn-carven marble I listen intently for sound.

I have haunted the tombs of the ages,I have flown on the pinions of fearWhere the smoke-belching Erebus rages;Where the jokuls loom snow-clad and drear:And in realms where the sun of the desert consumes what it never can cheer.

I was old when the Pharaohs first mountedThe jewel-deck'd throne by the Nile;I was old in those epochs uncountedWhen I, and I only, was vile;And Man, yet untainted and happy, dwelt in bliss on the far Arctic isle.

Oh, great was the sin of my spirit,And great is the reach of its doom;Not the pity of Heaven can cheer it,Nor can respite be found in the tomb;Down the infinite aeons come beating the wings of unmerciful gloom.

Thro' the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber,Past the wan-moon'd abysses of night,I have liv'd o'er my lives without number,I have sounded all things with my sight;And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright.