The Gloom-World

                              I.
There Is a kingdom which la not of Light, 
     A grandeur of the dark and gloomy vast, 
     Where, if a star-beam from on high were cast
‘Twould die in stranglings of eternal night.
No Zephyr's wing pursues Its timid flight, 
     Nor tempest, there, peals out its trumpet blast;
     A silence deepening from an endless past 
We’ghs like a solid on that realm of blight!
The flames of lightning, dashed upon its coast,
     Fall back repulsed, as from a rock of jet, 
In pale, phosphoric spray, and all the host 
     Of meteors plunging from heaven's parapet,
Smiting that blackness, with a hiss are quenched,
Like rockets fired at sea, in midnight billows
drenched.

                              II.
When God said: -"Light, be thou!" – the thunder-jar
     Of that grand word shook universal space 
     With luminous thrills, but this one dismal place,
Set in primeval gloom so deep and far 
It caught no echo of the Morning Star, 
     Nor shouting of the Angels! Not a trace
     Of the bright footsteps of their radiant race 
Left on the unyielding night its ruddy scar!
One moan, or gleam - were it from central hell —
     Would make less terrible the utter hush 
     And blackness of this darkness, that would crush
     The very soul, if any soul could dwell 
In its dumb density for one penal hour—
Where nothing lives, nor is, but blind and monstrous Power!

                              III.
No light implies no life; and this, no play 
     Of hope or joy, no love, nor even hate—
     For hate is love's denial, and the mate 
Of every shadow is a gladdening ray;
On shores of midnight breaks the Milky Way!
     What world is this, then, where malignant fate
     Has throned perpetual darkness at the gate 
Of ebon adamant, to repel the day?
A world of nightmare and hag-ridden dream, 
     Sought by Denial to escape the reign 
Of poor Credulity, whose blind extreme
     Touches the boundary of this black domain—
This world without a God, for refugees 
From demon-realms of all unkind divinities.

                              IV.
Over the threshhold of this utter gloom
     Thick darkness oozes in a pitchy stream, 
     Where hearts that wail, and spirits that blaspheme,
Plunge lips of eager thirst, and crowd for room, 
As if that acrid blackness were the bloom 
     Of red wine flashing its delusive gleam.
     They quaff, and maddened, rush with frantic scream,
Or gasping sink, to mute Oblivion's tomb.
Silent the Gloom-World; but the sob of grief, 
     The cry of souls in fens of dogma lost, 
And yet more dismal laugh of Unbelief, 
     Are hurled like billows on its ebon coast!
Happy the soul the refluent wave flings back 
From that malignant ooze, slow, bitter, cold and black!