Chapter V

I plunged through rooms of deepest Tyrian dye;
I tore the veils from mysteries aside;
But grinning pleasure ever met mine eye.
In anguished ecstasy of bliss, I cried;
And through the halls, I heard the echo wane
Until the last, most distant answer sighed:
"The spirit of the world is pain, pain, pain--"
Then from the drowsy distance, there did well
A voice as of a witch before her fane,
Soft-muttering, some Heaven-blasting spell:
"The world is all in vain, the merest tool
Of accident, an anteroom to Hell,
A counterfeit but fairly glinting pool--
Snatch all the joy thou canst, thou human fool!"