The Unremembered

What stern prenatal palls occlude from us Once-dominant Signs, once-rampant arms! How straight The sunless road, suspended, separate, That leads from death to birth! Not luminous

With lodestar, or with star calamitous, The Past is closed as by the night-black spate Of planet-gulfing seas–-its keyless gate Lost in Avernian shadows cavernous.

In his bleak mercy, Death forever strips The soul of light and memory, rendering blind Our vision, lest surmounted deeps appall, As when on mountain-heights a glance behind Betrays with knowledge, and the climber slips Down gulfs of fear to some enormous fall.