Iii

And darkness fell, and a great void of space, As if to bar our further going on, Unfeatured, huge, gloomed o’er us. No light shone. Strength, too, scarce held sufficient now to trace The squalid reaches of this dismal place; And silence settled near and far upon That vacancy at length--our last guide gone. Night hid each from his comrade, face from face. As is a voyage through the uncharted waste Of seas, unpiloted by any star, Alone, unmooned, uncomforted, unplanned; So forward still in silent pain we paced, Nor light of moon nor pharos gleamed from far Across the boding gloom of that lost land.

RASTATT, 3rd May