I walked within the waves' chill breath,
Enfolded as with veils of death;
The bearded mists that deepening grew,
As foam-flakes on their eddies flew.
Before me the Moon's sinking face
Glowed like a fireless altar-place;
White vapours ghost-like flitted by,
Hurriedly catching the ray cast
Sicklily from her livid eye.
I dared not look behind; I felt
The ground was hallowed where I trod;
That I the limits had o'er-passed
Of life, and entered on the sod
Where Kings pre-Adamite had dwelt.
Their eyes watched over me as one
Who had trespass made forbidden
In the realms of shadows hidden;
Who had deeds unholy done;
I felt hurried on, from fear
Of a thing unknown, but near,
Sightless but of substance still,
In its shape impalpable;
With a power of good or ill,
Following o'er me to fulfill.
I felt Darkness, crowned with cloud,
Strode after me in his starred shroud,
Like foe who doth not speak aloud,
His shadow on the ground avowed.
With stealthful pace and head depressed,
As one who would relieve his breast
From sense confused between the things
Wrought of the brain's imaginings;
Between the real and the seeming,
The living Vision and the dreaming;
I left the land with shadows rife,
And woke upon the shore of Life.