“Down, down, down, ten thousand fathoms deep.”

Count Fathom.

Who does not know that dreadful gulf, where Niagara falls,

Where eagle unto eagle screams, to vulture vulture calls;

Where down beneath, Despair and Death in liquid darkness grope,

And upward, on the foam there shines a rainbow without Hope;

While, hung with clouds of Fear and Doubt, the unreturning wave

Suddenly gives an awful plunge, like life into the grave;

And many a hapless mortal there hath dived to bale or bliss;

One — only one — hath ever lived to rise from that abyss!

Oh, Heav’n! it turns me now to ice with chill of fear extreme,

To think of my frail bark adrift on that tumultuous stream!

In vain with desperate sinews, strung by love of life and light,

I urged that coffin, my canoe, against the current’s might:

On — on — still on — direct for doom, the river rush’d in force,

And fearfully the stream of Time raced with it in its course.

My eyes I closed — I dared not look the way towards the goal;

But still I viewed the horrid close, and dreamt it in my soul.