A WILDERNESS, made awful with the night -- Great glimmering trunks whose tops were hid in gloom, Vast columns in the blackness broken off, Between whose ghostly forms, slow-wandering, A company of lost men sought a path. Some groped among the dead leaves and fallen boughs For footprints; but the rattle of the leaves And crook of stems seemed serpents coiled to strike Some took the momentary sparks that rode Upon their straining eyeballs, for far lights, And followed them. Some stood apart, in vain Searching, with horror-widened eyes, for stars. So, stumbling on, they circled round and round Through the same mazes. Then they singled one To climb a pinnacled height, and see from thence The landmarks, and to shout from thence their course. With aching sinews, bleeding feet, bruised hands, He gained the height; but when they cried to him They got but maudlin answers, -- he had found, Slaking hot thirst, a fruit that maddened him. Another, and another still they sent; But every one that climbed found the ill fruit And maddened, and gave back but wild replies: And still in darkness they go wandering, lost. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MONUMENT MOUNTAIN by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM, THE MURDERER by THOMAS HOOD ODE ON SOLITUDE (FINAL PRINTED VERSION) by ALEXANDER POPE THE LOST CHORD by ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER ALPINE SPIRIT'S SONG by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES DIRGE FOR A YOUNG MAIDEN by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES BEES IN CLOVER; A SONG by LOUISA SARAH BEVINGTON |