THE DESCENT INTO THE CRATER
POPOCATAPETL
(From "The Sulphur Gatherers," an unpublished early poem.)
Then, shuddering an instant, with the fear
That chills the bravest glancing unawares
From dreadful heights, Montaña in his crate
Clung fast, and crouched, and bade them lower away;
And the frail car, descending slowly, swung
Far from the cliff,—as the aërial nest,
Which the red oriole has shrewdly built,
Swings pendulous from the extremest bough
Of some huge elm, sweeping in dizzy curves
This way and that, and eddying thundergusts
Whirl it with snap and twist, but still it clings
Through all the tempest, even so the knight,
Sheer in mid air, swung over all that depth,
Whirled with the cordage till his brain grew sick,
But clinging still; and still they lowered him
By shadowy lines of chasm, cave, and crag;
And cave and crag like shadows glided up,
Blurred as in dismal visions of the night,
When down some unknown pit the dreamer falls
Helpless and hopeless. Down, still down. Above,
His comrades' voices were no longer heard.
Down, like the birdsmen of the isle, who swing,
Hunting the eider's plumage, from the holms
Of sea-girt Orkney, or the perilous bluffs
Of Stromoe, black above the roaring main;
Down by the rended vents of ancient fires,
And where the genii of the mountain hide,
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