Classic Poem

‘Where have you been? You look queer,
You look black.’ ‘O my dear,
All alone to Hell and back,
By my known, my desert track;
Though once I might, like you, have gone
By candlelight to Babylon.’

‘What have you seen?’ ‘No flame or fires,
But such a stream of terrors and desires.
O my child, nothing's there
Like your fingers, like your hair,
Nor this table, nor this chair;
Nothing certain but despair.’