Great cities there I saw—­of rich and poor,
    The palace and the hovel; mountains, vales,
  Forest and field, the desert and the moor,
    Tombs of the good and wise who’d lived in jails,
    And seas of denser fluid, white with sails
  Pushed at by currents moving here and there
    And sensible to sight above the flat
  Of that opaquer deep.  Ah, strange and fair
    The nether world that I was gazing at
  With beating heart from that exalted level,
  And—­lest I founder—­trembling like the devil!

  The cities all were populous:  men swarmed
    In public places—­chattered, laughed and wept;
  And savages their shining bodies warmed
    At fires in primal woods.  The wild beast leapt
    Upon its prey and slew it as it slept. 
  Armies went forth to battle on the plain
    So far, far down in that unfathomed deep
  The living seemed as silent as the slain,
    Nor even the widows could be heard to weep. 
  One might have thought their shaking was but laughter;
  And, truly, most were married shortly after.

  Above the wreckage of that silent fray
    Strange fishes swam in circles, round and round—­
  Black, double-finned; and once a little way
    A bubble rose and burst without a sound
    And a man tumbled out upon the ground. 
  Lord! ’twas an eerie thing to drift apace
    On that pellucid sea, beneath black skies
  And o’er the heads of an undrowning race;
    And when I woke I said—­to her surprise
  Who came with chocolate, for me to drink it: 
  “The atmosphere is deeper than you think it.”

VISIONS OF SIN.

  KRASLAJORSK, Siberia, March 29.

  “My eyes are better, and I shall travel slowly toward home.” 
    Danenhower.

  From the regions of the Night,
  Coming with recovered sight—­
  From the spell of darkness free,
  What will Danenhower see?

  He will see when he arrives,
  Doctors taking human lives. 
  He will see a learned judge
  Whose decision will not budge
  Till both litigants are fleeced
  And his palm is duly greased. 
  Lawyers he will see who fight
  Day by day and night by night;
  Never both upon a side,
  Though their fees they still divide. 
  Preachers he will see who teach
  That it is divine to preach—­
  That they fan a sacred fire
  And are worthy of their hire. 
  He will see a trusted wife

  (Pride of some good husband’s life)
  Enter at a certain door
  And—­but he will see no more. 
  He will see Good Templars reel—­
  See a prosecutor steal,
  And a father beat his child. 
  He’ll perhaps see Oscar Wilde.

  From the regions of the Night
  Coming with recovered sight—­
  From the bliss of blindness free,
  That’s what Danenhower’ll see.