Page:The city of dreadful night - and other poems (IA cityofdreadfulni00thomrich).pdf/25

 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 when it is beguiled.

No time abates the first despair and awe, But wonder ceases soon; the weirdest thing Is felt least strange beneath the lawless law Where Death-in-Life is the eternal king; Crushed impotent beneath this reign of terror, Dazed with such mysteries of woe and error, The soul is too outworn for wondering.

He stood alone within the spacious square Declaiming from the central grassy mound, With head uncovered and with streaming hair, As if large multitudes were gathered round: A stalwart shape, the gestures full of might, The glances burning with unnatural light:— Errata