Through Vaults Of Pain, Enribbed And Wrought With Groins Of Ghastliness, I Passed, And Garish Spectres Moved My Brain To Dire Distress. And Hammerings, And Quakes, And Shoots, And Stifling Hotness, Blent With Webby Waxing Things And Waning Things As On I Went. "Where Lies The End To This Foul Way?" I Asked With Weakening Breath. Thereon Ahead I Saw A Door Extend - The Door To Death. It Loomed More Clear: "At Last!" I Cried. "The All-Delivering Door!" And Then, I Knew Not How, It Grew Less Near Than Theretofore. And Back Slid I Along The Galleries By Which I Came, And Tediously The Day Returned, And Sky, And Life - The Same. And All Was Well: Old Circumstance Resumed Its Former Show, And On My Head The Dews Of Comfort Fell As Ere My Woe. I Roam Anew, Scarce Conscious Of My Late Distress . . . And Yet Those Backward Steps Through Pain I Cannot View Without Regret. For That Dire Train Of Waxing Shapes And Waning, Passed Before, And Those Grim Aisles, Must Be Traversed Again To Reach That Door.