Page:Poems Rossetti.djvu/52

A land of chasm and rent, a land
Of rugged blackness on either hand:
If water trickled its track was tanned
 With an edge of rust to the chink;
If one stamped on stone or on sand
  It returned a clink.

A lifeless land, a loveless land,
Without lair or nest on either hand:
Only scorpions jerked in the sand,
 Black as black iron, or dusty pale;
From point to point sheer rock was manned
  By scorpions in mail.

A land of neither life nor death,
Where no man buildeth or fashioneth,
Where none draws living or dying breath;
 No man cometh or goeth there,
No man doeth, seeketh, saith,
  In the stagnant air.

Some old volcanic upset must
Have rent the crust and blackened the crust;
Wrenched and ribbed it beneath its dust,
 Above earth's molten centre at seethe,
Heaved and heaped it by huge upthrust
  Of fire beneath.

Untrodden before, untrodden since:
Tedious land for a social Prince;
Halting, he scanned the outs and ins,