The Abyss

Because I do not wish you to be lost.... Because not one of those, do you
hear, not one of those who have opened it, were it but by a hair's breadth,
has ever returned alive to the light of day.... Because every awful thing
imaginable, because all the terrors, all the horrors of which men speak on
earth are as nothing compared with the most harmless of those which assail
a man from the moment when his eye lights upon the first threats of the
abyss to which no one dares give a name.... So much so that I myself,
if you are bent, in spite of everything, upon touching that door, will ask
you to wait until I have sought safety in my windowless tower... Now it is
for you to know, for you to reflect....

About Algernon Charles Swinburne

Victorian English poet known for his lyrical verse, classical themes, and controversial subject matter. A major figure of the Aesthetic movement.

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