O thou who darest to tread the Eternal Wild,
On heavenly pity leaning, hurt to death,
See, every herb and flower of ruth is here.
Or wilt thou suffer long, and bleed away?
Strict is the recompense—one lonely grave,
Spread on the rock or flower-strown in the vale.
Or dost thou think, on that dim verge arrived
Where sits the Eternal Hunger, thou wilt glut
With thy poor morsel life the famined void?
Aha! the breasts of life are sweet to suck
When to the innocent mouth they give the milk;
But thou—thy innocency is forgot!
I am the way unto the place of loss;
The Death indeed I am; and mine the art,
Mine, only mine, to still the Serpent's fangs."
Bitter, and hoarse and short with struggling will,
The cry broke from him in his misery:
"Sleeps then—man am I—sleeps because I die,
Sleeps in man's heart the writhing worm of hell?
Had I sought peace, peace long ago were found.
O cruel guile! O pitiless! to make
