Into a void below:
Its shapeless sides of dark-hued clay
Hang ready aye to go.

I am myself a horrid grave,
My very heart turns grey;
This charnel-hole,--will no one save
And force my feet away?

The changing dead are there, I know,
In terror ever new;
Yet down the frightful slope I go,
That downward goeth too.

Beneath the caverned floor I hie,
And seem, with anguish dull,
To enter by the empty eye
Into a monstrous skull.

Stumbling on what I dare not guess,
And wading through the gloom,
Less deep the shades my eyes oppress,
I see the awful tomb.

My steps have led me to a door,
With iron clenched and barred;
Grim Death hides there a ghastlier store,
Great spider in his ward.

The portals shake, the bars are bowed,