In the Dark

OW often, when I wake from sleep at night,I search my consciousness to find the illThat has lurked formlessly within it, stillHaunting me with a shadowy affright;And try to seize it and to know arightIts vague proportions, and my frantic willRuns this way and runs that way, with a thrillOf horror, to all things that ban or blight!Then, when I find all well, it is as thoughThe moment were some reef where I had creptFrom the wide waste of danger and of death,And for a little I might draw my breathBefore the flood came up again, and sweptOver it, and gulfed me in its deeps below.