Hells Gate

Onward led the road again     Through the sad uncoloured plain     Under twilight brooding dim,     And along the utmost rim     Wall and rampart risen to sight     Cast a shadow not of night,     And beyond them seemed to glow     Bonfires lighted long ago.     And my dark conductor broke     Silence at my side and spoke,     Saying, "You conjecture well:     Yonder is the gate of hell."     Ill as yet the eye could see     The eternal masonry,     But beneath it on the dark     To and fro there stirred a spark.     And again the sombre guide     Knew my question, and replied:     "At hell gate the damned in turn     Pace for sentinel and burn."     Dully at the leaden sky     Staring, and with idle eye     Measuring the listless plain,     I began to think again.     Many things I thought of then,     Battle, and the loves of men,     Cities entered, oceans crossed,     Knowledge gained and virtue lost,     Cureless folly done and said,     And the lovely way that led     To the slimepit and the mire     And the everlasting fire.     And against a smoulder dun     And a dawn without a sun     Did the nearing bastion loom,     And across the gate of gloom     Still one saw the sentry go,     Trim and burning, to and fro,     One for women to admire     In his finery of fire.     Something, as I watched him pace,     Minded me of time and place,     Soldiers of another corps     And a sentry known before.     Ever darker hell on high     Reared its strength upon the sky,     And our football on the track     Fetched the daunting echo back.     But the soldier pacing still     The insuperable sill,     Nursing his tormented pride,     Turned his head to neither side,     Sunk into himself apart     And the hell-fire of his heart.     But against our entering in     From the drawbridge Death and Sin     Rose to render key and sword     To their father and their lord.     And the portress foul to see     Lifted up her eyes on me     Smiling, and I made reply:     "Met again, my lass," said I.     Then the sentry turned his head,     Looked, and knew me, and was Ned.     Once he looked, and halted straight,     Set his back against the gate,     Caught his musket to his chin,     While the hive of hell within     Sent abroad a seething hum     As of towns whose king is come     Leading conquest home from far     And the captives of his war,     And the car of triumph waits,     And they open wide the gates.     But across the entry barred     Straddled the revolted guard,     Weaponed and accoutred well     From the arsenals of hell;     And beside him, sick and white,     Sin to left and Death to right     Turned a countenance of fear     On the flaming mutineer.     Over us the darkness bowed,     And the anger in the cloud     Clenched the lightning for the stroke;     But the traitor musket spoke.     And the hollowness of hell     Sounded as its master fell,     And the mourning echo rolled     Ruin through his kingdom old.     Tyranny and terror flown     Left a pair of friends alone,     And beneath the nether sky     All that stirred was he and I.     Silent, nothing found to say,     We began the backward way;     And the ebbing luster died     From the soldier at my side,     As in all his spruce attire     Failed the everlasting fire.     Midmost of the homeward track     Once we listened and looked back;     But the city, dusk and mute,     Slept, and there was no pursuit.