But when you reach the Bridge of Dread

Your flesh will huddle into its nest

For refuge and your naked head

Creep in the casement of your breast,

And your great bulk grow thin and small

And cower within its cage of bone,

While dazed you watch your footsteps crawl

Toadlike across the leagues of stone.

If they come, you will not feel

About your feet the adders slide,

For still your head’s demented wheel

Whirls on your neck from side to side

Searching for danger: Nothing there.

And yet your breath will whistle and beat

As on you push the stagnant air

That breaks in rings about your feet

Like dirty suds. If there should come

Some bodily terror to that place,

Great knotted serpents dread and dumb,

You would accept it as a grace.

Until you see a burning wire

Shoot from the ground. As in a dream

You’ll wonder at that flower of fire,

That weed caught in a burning beam.

And you are past. Remember then,

Fix deep within your, dreaming head

Year, hour or endless moment when

You reached and crossed the Bridge of Dread.