Alfred Noyes (1880-1958) : "The Strong City"

...

And, when it was darkest, I came to a strong city, 
           No earthly tongue can tell how I journeyed there,
Deaf to this world's compassion, 
          Blind to its pity,
With a heart wrung empty, even to its dumb prayer.

I had left the clattering throngs in the night behind me, 
         And stumbled into a desert that had no name.
Torn, bleeding of foot,
        Through cactus and thorn I stumbled,
And, when it was darkest, to that strongly city I came.

Gate there was none, nor window. It towered above me
        Like a vest fortress into the midnight sky.
And I beat on the granite walls,
        But I found no entry,
And the blood ran over my wrists, but I heard no reply.

I groped around them; I groped around them;
       Stared up at their cold eyes and found them stone;
And crowled on, on,
      Till  I overtook strange footprints
going my way, and knew them for my own,

Strange footprints, clotted with blood, in the sand before me,
     Trailing the hopeless way I had trailed before;
For in that night,
     I girdled the whole dark city,
Feeling each adamant inch, and found no door.

I fell on my face in the rank salt of the desert
     Slow, hot like blood, out of my hopeless eyes,
The salt tears bled.
     The salt of the desert drank them, 
And I cried, once, to God, as a child cries.

Then, then, I cannot tell
      What strange thing happened,
Only, as at a breath of the midnight air,
      These eyes, like two staunched wounds, had ceased their bleeding
And my despair had ended my despair.
  



From "The Last Voyage" - Alfred Noyes