Limbo[429:2]

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The sole true Something--This! In Limbo's Den It frightens Ghosts, as here Ghosts frighten men. Thence cross'd unseiz'd--and shall some fated hour Be pulveris'd by Demogorgon's power, And given as poison to annihilate souls-- Even now it shrinks them--they shrink in as Moles (Nature's mute monks, live mandrakes of the ground) Creep back from Light--then listen for its sound;-- See but to dread, and dread they know not why-- The natural alien of their negative eye.

'Tis a strange place, this Limbo!--not a Place, Yet name it so;--where Time and weary Space Fettered from flight, with night-mare sense of fleeing, Strive for their last crepuscular half-being;-- Lank Space, and scytheless Time with branny hands Barren and soundless as the measuring sands, Not mark'd by flit of Shades,--unmeaning they As moonlight on the dial of the day! But that is lovely--looks like Human Time,-- An Old Man with a steady look sublime, That stops his earthly task to watch the skies; But he is blind--a Statue hath such eyes;-- Yet having moonward turn'd his face by chance, Gazes the orb with moon-like countenance, With scant white hairs, with foretop bald and high, He gazes still,--his eyeless face all eye;-- As 'twere an organ full of silent sight, His whole face seemeth to rejoice in light! Lip touching lip, all moveless, bust and limb-- He seems to gaze at that which seems to gaze on him! No such sweet sights doth Limbo den immure, Wall'd round, and made a spirit-jail secure, By the mere horror of blank Naught-at-all, Whose circumambience doth these ghosts enthral. A lurid thought is growthless, dull Privation, Yet that is but a Purgatory curse; Hell knows a fear far worse, A fear--a future state;--'tis positive Negation!

1817.