Through vaults of pain
Enribbed and wrought with groins of ghastliness
I passed, and garish spectres moved my brain
To dire distress

And hammerings
And quakes, and shoots, and stifling hotness, blent
With webby waxing things and waning things
As on I went

"Where lies the end
To this foul way?" I asked with weakening breath
Thereon ahead I saw a door extend -
The door to death

It loomed more clear:
"At last!" I cried. "The all-delivering door!"
And then, I knew not how, it grew less near
Than thеretofore

And back slid!
Along the gallеries by which I came
And tediously the day returned, and sky
And life—the same

And all was well:
Old circumstance resumed its former show
And on my head the dews of comfort fell
As ere my woe
I roam anew
Scarce conscious of my late distress . . . And yet
Those backward steps through pain I cannot view
Without regret

For that dire train
Of waxing shapes and waning, passed before
And those grim aisles, must be traversed again
To reach that door