THE STAKE. 
Past and coming, and dreary present, 
Fast before me seem’d to fleet 
As I flung me at his feet. 
From that hour I nothing noted ; 
Night and day before me floated : 
All things pass’d me as in dreaming 
With a strange unreal seeming. 
In a stupor dim and gloomy 
Time and place were nothing to me ; 
Heedless of all human pity, 
Lonely in the thronged city, 
Without sense I wandered on, 
An unmoved automaton ; 
Till once more his countenance, 
Mingled with the dim forms blending 
In my wild and hopeless trance, 
And my listless footsteps bending 
Whithersoe’er the phantom fled, 
On I followed where he led. 
Thousands, thousands, onward speeding, 
Bore me with them, all unheeding, 
Under tower, under gateway, 
On towards the wild heath lonely, 
With fixed purpose hurrying straightway : 
I was following him only. 
Like the wild, swamp-haunting fire, 
To be seen, but ne’er o’ertaken ; 
Never further, never nigher : 
There he gleamed with air serene, 
Through the nightmare forms between, 
And his calm brow as unshaken 
As if all that earnest throng 
At his bidding moved along. 
There, as one whose glance was full 
Of a calm security, 
Seing the invisible, 
Conscious of infinity, 
Measuring human law and power, 
The fell sway of its brief hour, 
By the soul’s eternity. 
443 
