AFTER

Bands broken, cords loosened, and all
Set free. Well, I know
That I turned my cold face to the wall,
Was silent, strove, gasped, then there fell
A numbness, a faintness, a spell
Of blindness, hung as a pall,
On me, falling low,
And a far fading sound of a knell.

Then a fierce stretching of hands
In gloom; and my feet,
Treading tremulous over hard sands;
A wind that wailed wearily slow,
A plashing of waters below,
A twilight on bleak lone lands,
Spread out; and a sheet
Of the moaning sea shallows aflow.

Then a steep highway that leads
Somewhere, cold, austere;
And I follow a shadow that heeds
My coming, and points, not in wrath,
Out over: we tread the sere path
Up to the summit; recedes
All gloom; and at last