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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,
G
