A Wasted Illness

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.