The City of Dreadful Night. Thomson James

        Because he seemed to walk with an intent

          I followed him; who, shadowlike and frail,

        Unswervingly though slowly onward went,

          Regardless, wrapt in thought as in a veil:

        Thus step for step with lonely sounding feet

        We travelled many a long dim silent street.

        At length he paused: a black mass in the gloom,

          A tower that merged into the heavy sky;

        Around, the huddled stones of grave and tomb:

          Some old God's-acre now corruption's sty:

        He murmured to himself with dull despair,

        Here Faith died, poisoned by this charnel air.

        Then turning to the right went on once more

          And travelled weary roads without suspense;

        And reached at last a low wall's open door,

          Whose villa gleamed beyond the foliage dense:

        He gazed, and muttered with a hard despair,

        Here Love died, stabbed by its own worshipped pair.

        Then turning to the right resumed his march,

          And travelled street and lanes with wondrous strength,

        Until on stooping through a narrow arch

          We stood before a squalid house at length:

        He gazed, and whispered with a cold despair,

        Here Hope died, starved out in its utmost lair.

        When he had spoken thus, before he stirred,

          I spoke, perplexed by something in the signs

        Of desolation I had seen and heard

          In this drear pilgrimage to ruined shrines:

        Where Faith and Love and Hope are dead indeed,

        Can Life still live?  By what doth it proceed?

        As whom his one intense thought overpowers,

          He answered coldly, Take a watch, erase

        The signs and figures of the circling hours,

          Detach the hands, remove the dial-face;

        The works proceed until run down; although

        Bereft of purpose, void of use, still go.

        Then turning to the right paced on again,

          And traversed squares and travelled streets whose glooms

        Seemed more and more familiar to my ken;

          And reached that sullen temple of the tombs;

        And paused to murmur with the old despair,

        Hear Faith died, poisoned by this charnel air.

        I ceased to follow, for the knot of doubt

          Was severed sharply with a cruel knife:

        He circled thus forever tracing out

          The series of the fraction left of Life;

        Perpetual recurrence in the scope

        Of but three terms, dead Faith, dead Love, dead Hope.2

        Although lamps burn along the silent streets,

          Even when moonlight silvers empty squares

        The dark holds countless lanes and close retreats;

          But when the night its sphereless mantle wears

        The open spaces yawn with gloom abysmal,

        The sombre mansions loom immense and dismal,

          The lanes are black as subterranean lairs.

        And soon the eye a strange new vision learns:

          The night remains for it as dark and dense,

        Yet clearly in this darkness it discerns

          As in the daylight with its natural sense;

        Perceives a shade in shadow not obscurely,

        Pursues a stir of black in blackness surely,

          Sees spectres also in the gloom intense.

        The ear, too, with the silence vast and deep

          Becomes familiar though unreconciled;

        Hears breathings as of hidden life asleep,

          And muffled throbs as of pent passions wild,

        Far murmurs, speech of pity or derision;

        but all more dubious than the things of vision,

          So that it knows not when it is beguiled.

        No time abates the