Intended for first stanza of “Death’s Valley”
Aye, well I know ’tis ghastly to descend that valley: Preachers, musicians, poets, painters, always render it, Philosophs exploit—the battlefield, the ship at sea, the myriad beds, all lands, All, all the past have enter’d, the ancientest humanity we know, Syria’s, India’s, Egypt’s, Greece’s, Rome’s; Till now for us under our very eyes spreading the same to-day, Grim, ready, the same to-day, for entrance, yours and mine, Here, here ’tis limn’d.