All I could see from where I stood Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked another way, And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line Of the horizon, thin and fine, Straight around till I was come Back to where I'd started from;
And all I saw from where I stood Was three long mountains and a wood.
Over these things I could not see;
These were the things that bounded me;
And I could touch them with my hand, Almost, I thought, from where I stand.
And all at once things seemed so small My breath came short, and scarce at all.
But, sure, the sky is big, I said;
Miles and miles above my head;
So here upon my back I'll lie And look my fill into the sky.
And so I looked, and, after all, The sky was not so very tall.
The sky, I said, must somewhere stop, And -- sure enough! -- I see the top!
The sky, I thought, is not so grand;
I 'most could touch it with my hand!
And reaching up my hand to try, I screamed to feel it touch the sky.
I screamed, and -- lo! -- Infinity Came down and settled over me;
Forced back my scream into my chest, Bent back my arm upon my breast, And, pressing of the Undefined The definition on my mind, Held up before my eyes a glass Through which my shrinking sight did pass Until it seemed I must behold Immensity made manifold;
Whispered to me a word whose sound Deafened the air for worlds around, And brought unmuffled to my ears The gossiping of friendly spheres, The creaking of the tented sky, The ticking of Eternity.
I saw and heard, and knew at last The How and Why of all things, past, And present, and forevermore.
The Universe, cleft to the core, Lay open to my probing sense That, sick'ning, I would fain pluck thence But could not, -- nay! But needs must suck At the great wound, and could not pluck My lips away till I had drawn All venom out. -- Ah, fearful pawn!
For my omniscience paid I toll In infinite remorse of soul.
All sin was of my sinning, all Atoning mine, and mine the gall Of all regret. Mine was the weight Of every brooded wrong, the hate That stood behind each envious thrust, Mine every greed, mine every lust.
And all the while for every grief, Each suffering, I craved relief With individual desire,-- Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire About a thousand people crawl;
Perished with each, -- then mourned for all!
A man was starving in Capri;
He moved his eyes and looked at me;
I felt his gaze, I heard his moan, And knew his hunger as my own.
I saw at sea a great fog bank Between two ships that struck and sank;
A thousand screams the heavens smote;
And every scream tore through my throat.
No hurt I did not feel, no death That was not mine; mine each last breath That, crying, met an answering cry From the compassion that was I.
All suffering mine, and mine its rod;
Mine, pity like the pity of God.
Ah, awful weight! Infinity Pressed down upon the finite Me!
My anguished spirit, like a bird, Beating against my lips I heard;
Yet lay the weight so close about There was no room for it without.
And so beneath the weight lay I And suffered death, but could not die.
Long had I lain thus, craving death, When quietly the earth beneath Gave way, and inch by inch, so great At last had grown the crushing weight, Into the earth I sank till I
Full six feet under ground did lie, And sank no more, -- there is no weight Can follow here, however great.
From off my breast I felt it roll, And as it went my tortured soul Burst forth and fled in such a gust That all about me swirled the dust.
Deep in the earth I rested now;
Cool is its hand upon the brow And soft its breast beneath the head Of one who is so gladly dead.
