—Forth into the black night
Ran the black boat. A shudder and a snort,
A flash, and forth it ran. Went all my hope with it.
A moment, and a sudden foolish joy
O'erswept me that the black boat should not go—
A moment while it hung upon its poise
And seemed it could not start; the sleepy waters
Clogged so its fans (how did I love those waters!)
Which with a strong will soon—alas!—
Grinding their clog to smoke, made opposition
Into assistance. Forth it went, my hope with it.
Forth ran the black boat into the black blank;
But still on board there burned a living light:
My hope burned with it. For a time, too short,
It kept the dark at bay; then more and more
That cheery, warm, recognisable spot
Narrowed, each breathless moment more and more,
Till so the vast o'ercrept it, that it now
Was but a shapeless patch on the black plane—
Now but a star that night, respecting, hates—
Now but a spark that blackness yawns to swallow.
The spark expired! Expired my hope with it?
From the pierhead into the dark I stared,
I strained my starting eyes: was nought to see.
As I upon a promont of creation,
Where it o'erjects the inexistent void,
Had stood to gaze, so gazed I from the pier;
So fearfully the blind wave of nothingness
Rolled up against my eyeballs, with a pain
That seemed to quench my soul: my blood, I had said,
Knew no more motion—frozen in its spring.
Nought in the deep! Nought in the sky! No sky!
No deep! I only standing on the pier,
My back against that world, that only was,
From which I had just beheld its only good
Pass out into the nought!
For life I yearned,
For substance, sweet assurance, strong reality.
They were behind me, and beneath my foot
Swelled the solidity for which I yearned;
Yet nor behind me could I bear to look —
To see the mountains, lights, and breathing town,
Nor downward look— to see the well-cut flags,
The well-sheathed limb, that would speak of a world indeed
Of warm humanity, manners, arts, and things,
Yet from whose gross and now fantastic bulk
All spirit, life, and goodness had passed out
With that black boat into void nothingness.
Fond are the moods of lovers, yet not vain;
Nor seldom in the bosom of one thought
Lie other thoughts that are of deeper truth.
From ledge to ledge, abysm within abysm
(As, say they, in the marvellous lunar sphere,
The huge vulcanian chasms, gulf swallowing gulf),
Descends the inward deep of spiritual truth,
Wherein the soul has power to plunge and sound
Through passion. Not at once she plumbs the depth.
Long stood I on the pier, and night stole on,
And from behind me (as I saw not yet)
Lamp after lamp in bedroom casements died,
And sound dropped after sound: in the silent streets
The watchman hooded now the useless lights;
And when I turned, behind me, as before,
Was vacancy, and darkness, and blind silence.
There were no mountains, lights, nor breathing town,
Even my own limb was dyed in vacancy.
I say not then a thought of deeper truth
Came not upon me—from the solid earth,
That, still unseen, swelled to my warmer sole,
Grew up, and through my frame spread cordial life,
That left not my heart empty. Not by sight
Man lives (my hope grew lusty) but by faith.