The Cross

There is a place that some men know, I cannot see the whole of it Nor how I came there. Long ago Flame burst out of a secret pit Crushing the world with such a light The day-sky fell to moonless black, The kingly sun to hateful night For those, once seeing, turning back: For love so hates mortality Which is the providence of life She will not let it blessed be But curses it with mortal strife, Until beside the blinding rood Within that world-destroying pit -Like young wolves that have tasted blood, Of death, men taste no more of it. So blind, in so severe a place (All life before in the black grave) The last alternatives they face Of life, without the life to save, Being from all salvation weaned- A stag charged both at heel and head: Who would come back is turned a fiend Instructed by the fiery dead.