The Mining Scene
Hast ever seen a mine? Hast ever been
Down in its fabled grottoes, wali’d with gems,
And canopied with torrid mineral-belts,
That blaze within the fiery orifice?
Hast ever, by the glimmer of the lamp,
Or the fast-waning taper, gone down, down,
Towards the earth’s dread centre, where wise men
Have told us that the earthquake is conceived,
And great Vesuvius hath his lava-house,
Which burns and burns for ever, shooting forth
As from a fountain of eternal fire?
Hast ever heard, within this prison-house,
The startling hoof of Fear? the eternal flow
Of some dread meaning whispering to thy soul?
Hast ever seen the miner at his toil,
Following his obscure work below, below,
Where not a single sun-ray visits him,
But all is darkness and perpetual night?
Here the dull god of gloom unrivall’d reigns,
And wraps himself in palls of pitchy dark!
Hast ever breathed its sickening atmosphere?
Heard its dread throbbings, when the rock has burst?
Leap’d at its sneezings in the powder-blast?
And trembled when the groaning, splitting earth,
Mass after mass, fell down with deadliest crash?
What sayest thou? - hast thou not? Come with me;
Or if thou hast, no matter, come again
Don’t fear to trust me; for I have been there
From morn till night, from night till dewy morn,
Gasping within its burning sulphur-cloud,
Straining mine eyes along its ragged walls,
And wondering at the uncouth passages
Dash’d in the sparry cells by Fancy’s wand;
And oft have paused, and paused again, to hear
The eternal echo of its emptiness.
