What stern prenatal palls occlude from us
Once-dominant Signs, once-rampant arms! How straight
The sunless road, suspended, separate,
That leads from death to birth! Not luminous
With lodestar, or with star calamitous,
The Past is closed as by the night-black spate
Of planet-gulfing seas–-its keyless gate
Lost in Avernian shadows cavernous.
In his bleak mercy, Death forever strips
The soul of light and memory, rendering blind
Our vision, lest surmounted deeps appall,
As when on mountain-heights a glance behind
Betrays with knowledge, and the climber slips
Down gulfs of fear to some enormous fall.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1927.
The author died in 1961, so this work is also in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 60 years or less. This work may also be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.