Bram Stoker



When they told the poor Poet that the One he loved best was lying
sick in the shadow of danger, he was nigh distraught.

For weeks past he had been alone; she, his Wife, having gone afar
to her old home to see an aged grandsire ere he died.

The Poet's heart had for some days been oppressed with a strange
sorrow. He did not know the cause of it; he only knew with the deep
sympathy which is the poet's gift, that the One he loved was sick.
Anxiously had he awaited tidings. When the news came, the shock,
although he expected a sad message, was too much for him, and he
became nigh distraught.

In his sadness and anxiety he went out into the garden which long
years he had cultured for Her. There, amongst the bright flowers,
where the old statues stood softly white against the hedges of yew,
he lay down in the long uncut summer grass, and wept with his head
buried low.

He thought of all the past-of how he had won his Wife and how they
loved each other; and to him it seemed a sad and cruel thing that she
was afar and in danger, and he not near to comfort her or even to
share her pain.

Many many thoughts came back to him, telling the story of the weary
years whose gloom and solitude he had forgotten in the brightness of
his lovely home.-

How in youth they twain had met and in a moment loved. How his
poverty and her greatness had kept them apart. How he had struggled
and toiled in the steep and rugged road to fame and fortune.

How all through the weary years he had striven with the single
idea of winning such a place in the history of his time, that he
should be able to come and to her say, "I love you," and to her
proud relations, "I am worthy, for I too have become great."

How amid all this dreaming of a happy time which might come, he
had kept silent as to his love. How he had never seen her or heard
her voice, or even known her habitation, lest, knowing, he should
fail in the purpose of his life.

How time-as it ever does to those who work with honesty and
singleness of purpose-crowned the labours and the patience of his
life.

How the world had come to know his name and reverence and love it
as of one who had helped the weak and weary by his example; who had
purified the thoughts of all who listened to his words; and who had
swept away baseness before the grandeur and simpleness of his noble
thoughts.

How success had followed in the wake of fame.

How at length even to his heart, timorous with the doubt of love,
had been borne the thought that he had at last achieved the greatness
which justified him in seeking the hand of her he loved.

How he had come back to his native place, and there found her
still free.

How when he had dared to tell her of his love she had whispered to
him that she, too, had waited all the years, for that she knew that
he would come to claim her at the end.

How she had come with him as his bride into the home which he
had been making for her all these years. How, there, they had lived
happily; and had dared to look into the long years to come for joy
and content without a bar.

How he thought that even then, when though somewhat enfeebled in
strength by the ceaseless toil of years and the care of hoping, he
might look to the happy time to come.

But, alas! for hope; for who knoweth what a day may bring forth?
Only a little while ago his Dear One had left him hale, departing in
the cause of duty; and now she lay sick and he not nigh to help her.

All the sunshine of his life seemed passing away. All the long
years of waiting and the patient continuance in well-doing which had
crowned their years with love, seemed as but a passing dream, and was
all in vain-all, all in vain.

Now with the shadow hovering over his Beloved One, the cloud
seemed to be above and around them, and to hold in its dim recesses
the doom of them both.

"Why, oh why," asked the poor Poet to the viewless air, "did
love come to us? Why came peace and joy and happiness, if the
darkening wings of peril shadow the air around her, and leave me
to weep alone?"

Thus he moaned, and raved, and wept; and the bitter hours went
by him in his solitude.


As he lay in the garden with his face buried in the long grass,
they came to him and told him with weeping, that tidings-sad,
indeed-had come.

As they spoke he lifted his poor head and gazed at them; and they
saw in the great, dark, tender eyes that now he was quite distraught.
He smiled at them sadly, as though not quite understanding the import
of their words. As tenderly as they could they tried to tell him that
the One he loved best was dead.

They said:-

"She has walked in the Valley of the Shadow;" but he seemed to
understand them not.

They whispered,

"She has heard the Music of the Spheres," but still he
comprehended not.

Then they spoke to him sorrowfully and said:

"She now abides in the Castle of the King."

He looked at them eagerly, as if to ask:

"What castle? What king?"

They bowed their heads; and as they turned away weeping they
murmured to him softly-

"The Castle of the King of Death."

He spake no word; so they turned their weeping faces to him again.
They found that he had risen and stood with a set purpose on his face.
Then he said sweetly:

"I go to find her, that where she abideth, I too may there abide."

They said to him:

"You cannot go. Beyond the Portal she is, and in the Land of
Death."

Set purpose shone in the Poet's earnest, loving eyes as he
answered them for the last time:

"Where she has gone, there go I too. Through the Valley of the
Shadow shall I wend my way. In these ears also shall ring the Music
of the Spheres. I shall seek, and I shall find my Beloved in the
Halls of the Castle of the King. I shall clasp her close-even before
the dread face of the King of Death."

As they heard these words they bowed their heads again and wept,
and said:

"Alas! alas!"

The poet turned and left them; and passed away. They fain would
have followed; but he motioned them that they should not stir. So,
alone, in his grief he went.

As he passed on he turned and waved his hand to them in farewell.
Then for a while with uplifted hand he stood, and turned him slowly
all around.

Suddenly his outstretched hand stopped and pointed. His friends
looking with him saw, where, away beyond the Portal, the idle
wilderness spread. There in the midst of desolation the mist from
the marshes hung like a pall of gloom on the far off horizon.

As the Poet pointed there was a gleam of happiness-very very
faint it was-in his poor sad eyes, distraught with loss, as if afar
he beheld some sign or hope of the Lost One.


Swiftly and sadly the Poet fared on through the burning day.

The Rest Time came; but on he journeyed. He paused not for shade
or rest. Never, even for an instant did he stop to cool his parched
lips with an icy draught from the crystal springs.

The weary wayfarers resting in the cool shadows beside the
fountains raised their tired heads and looked at him with sleepy
eyes as he hurried. He heeded them not; but went ever onward with
set purpose in his eyes, as though some gleam of hope bursting
through the mists of the distant marshes urged him on.

So he fared on through all the burning day, and all the silent
night. In the earliest dawn, when the promise of the still unrisen
sun quickened the eastern sky into a pale light, he drew anigh the
Portal. The horizon stood out blackly in the cold morning light.

There, as ever, stood the Angels who kept watch and ward, and oh,
wondrous! although invisible to human eyes, they were seen of him.

As he drew nigh they gazed at him pityingly and swept their great
wings out wide, as if to shelter him. He spake; and from his troubled
heart the sad words came sweetly through the pale lips:

"Say, Ye who guard the Land, has my Beloved One passed hither on
the journey to the Valley of the Shadow, to hear the Music of the
Spheres, and to abide in the Castle of the King?"

The Angels at the Portal bowed their heads in token of assent;
and they turned and looked outward from the Land to where, far off
in the idle wilderness, the dank mists crept from the lifeless bosom
of the marsh.

They knew well that the poor lonely Poet was in quest of his
Beloved One; so they hindered him not, neither urged they him to
stay. They pitied him much for that much he loved.

They parted wide, that through the Portal he might pass without
let.

So, the Poet went onwards into the idle desert to look for his
Beloved One in the Castle of the King.

For a time he went through gardens whose beauty was riper than the
gardens of the Land. The sweetness of all things stole on the senses
like the odours from the Isles of the Blest.

The subtlety of the King of Death, who rules in the Realms of Evil,
is great. He has ordered that the way beyond the Portal be made full
of charm. Thus those straying from the paths ordained for good see
around them such beauty that in its joy the gloom and cruelty and
guilt of the desert are forgotten.

But as the Poet passed onwards the beauty began to fade away.

The fair gardens looked as gardens do when the hand of care is
taken off, and when the weeds in their hideous luxuriance choke, as
they spring up, the choicer life of the flowers.

From cool alleys under spreading branches, and from crisp sward
which touched as soft as velvet the Wanderer's aching feet, the way
became a rugged stony path, full open to the burning glare. The
flowers began to lose their odour, and to dwarf to stunted growth.
Tall hemlocks rose on every side, infecting the air with their
noisome odour.

Great fungi grew in the dark hollows where the pools of dank water
lay. Tall trees, with branches like skeletons, rose-trees which had
no leaves, and under whose shadow to pause were to die.

Then huge rocks barred the way. These were only passed by narrow,
winding passages, overhung by the ponderous cliffs above, which ever
threatened to fall and engulph the Sojourner.

Here the night began to fall; and the dim mist rising from the
far-off marshes, took weird shapes of gloom. In the distant fastnesses
of the mountains the wild beasts began to roar in their cavern lairs.
The air became hideous with the fell sounds of the night season.

But the poor Poet heeded not ill sights or sounds of dread. Onward
he went ever-unthinking of the terrors of the night. To him there was
no dread of darkness-no fear of death-no consciousness of horror. He
sought his Beloved One in the Castle of the King; and in that eager
quest all natural terrors were forgot.

So fared he onward through the livelong night. Up the steep
defiles he trod. Through the shadows of the huge rocks he passed
unscathed. The wild animals came around him roaring fiercely-their
great eyes flaming like fiery stars through the blackness of the
night.

From the high rocks great pythons crawled and hung to seize their
prey. From the crevices of the mountain steeps, and from cavernous
rifts in the rocky way poisonous serpents glided and rose to strike.

But close though the noxious things came, they all refrained to
attack; for they knew that the lonely Sojourner was bound for the
Castle of their King.

Onward still, onward he went-unceasing-pausing not in his
course-but pressing ever forward in his quest.

When daylight broke at last, the sun rose on a sorry sight. There
toiling on the rocky way, the poor lonely Poet went ever onwards,
unheeding of cold or hunger or pain.

His feet were bare, and his footsteps on the rock-strewn way
were marked by blood. Around and behind him, and afar off keeping
equal pace on the summits of the rocky ridges, came the wild beasts
that looked on him as their prey, but that refrained from touching
him because he sought the Castle of their King.

In the air wheeled the obscene birds who follow ever on the track
of the dying and the lost. Hovered the bare-necked vultures with
eager eyes, and hungry beaks. Their great wings flapped lazily in the
idle air as they followed in the Wanderer's track. The vulture are a
patient folk, and they await the falling of the prey.

From the cavernous recesses in the black mountain gorges crept,
with silent speed, the serpents that there lurk. Came the python,
with his colossal folds and endless coils, whence looked forth
cunningly the small flat head. Came the boa and all his tribe, which
seize their prey by force and crush it with the dread strictness of
their embrace. Came the hooded snakes and all those which with their
venom destroy their prey. Here, too, came those serpents most
terrible of all to their quarry-which fascinate with eyes of weird
magic and by the slow gracefulness of their approach.

Here came or lay in wait, subtle snakes, which take the colour
of herb, or leaf, or dead branch, or slimy pool, amongst which they
lurk, and so strike their prey unsuspecting.

Great serpents there were, nimble of body, which hang from rock or
branch. These gripping tight to their distant hold, strike downward
with the rapidity of light as they hurl their whip-like bodies from
afar upon their prey.

Thus came forth all these noxious things to meet the Questing Man,
and to assail him. But when they knew he was bound for the dread
Castle of their King, and saw how he went onward without fear, they
abstained from attack.

The deadly python and the boa towering aloft, with colossal folds,
were passive, and for the nonce, became as stone. The hooded serpents
drew in again their venomous fangs. The mild, deep earnest eyes of
the fascinating snake became lurid with baffled spleen, as he felt his
power to charm was without avail. In its deadly descent the hanging
snake arrested its course, and hung a limp line from rock or branch.

Many followed the Wanderer onwards into the desert wilds, waiting
and hoping for a chance to destroy.

Many other perils also were there for the poor Wanderer in the
desert idleness. As he went onward the rocky way got steeper and
darker. Lurid fogs and deadly chill mists arose.

Then in this path along the trackless wilderness were strange and
terrible things.

Mandrakes-half plant, half man-shrieked at him with despairing cry,
as, helpless for evil, they stretched out their ghastly arms in vain.

Giant thorns arose in the path; they pierced his suffering feet
and tore his flesh as onward he trod. He felt the pain, but he heeded
it not.

In all the long, terrible journey he had but one idea other than
his eager search for his Beloved One. He thought that the children
of men might learn much from the journey towards the Castle of the
King, which began so fair, amidst the odorous gardens and under the
cool shadow of the spreading trees. In his heart the Poet spake to
the multitude of the children of men; and from his lips the words
flowed like music, for he sang of the Golden Gate which the Angels
call TRUTH.

"Pass not the Portal of the Sunset Land!
Pause where the Angels at their vigil stand.
Be warned! and press not though the gates lie wide,
But rest securely on the hither side.
Though odorous gardens and cool ways invite,
Beyond are darkest valleys of the night.
Rest! Rest contented.-Pause whilst undefiled,
Nor seek the horrors of the desert wild."

Thus treading down all obstacles with his bleeding feet, passed
ever onwards, the poor distraught Poet, to seek his Beloved One in
the Castle of the King.

Even as onward he went the life that is of the animals seemed
to die away behind him. The jackals and the more cowardly savage
animals slunk away. The lions and tigers, and bears, and wolves,
and all the braver of the fierce beasts of prey which followed on
his track even after the others had stopped, now began to halt in
their career.

They growled low and then roared loudly with uplifted heads; the
bristles of their mouths quivered with passion, and the great white
teeth champed angrily together in baffled rage. They went on a little
further; and stopped again roaring and growling as before. Then one
by one they ceased, and the poor Poet went on alone.

In the air the vultures wheeled and screamed, pausing and halting
in their flight, as did the savage beasts. These too ceased at length
to follow in air the Wanderer in his onward course.

Longest of all kept up the snakes. With many a writhe and stealthy
onward glide, they followed hard upon the footsteps of the Questing
Man. In the blood marks of his feet upon the flinty rocks they found
a joy and hope, and they followed ever.

But time came when the awful aspect of the places where the Poet
passed checked even the serpents in their track-the gloomy defiles
whence issue the poisonous winds that sweep with desolation even the
dens of the beasts of prey-the sterile fastnesses which march upon
the valleys of desolation. Here even the stealthy serpents paused in
their course; and they too fell away. They glided back, smiling with
deadliest rancour, to their obscene clefts.

Then came places where plants and verdure began to cease. The
very weeds became more and more stunted and inane. Farther on they
declined into the sterility of lifeless rock. Then the most noxious
herbs that grew in ghastly shapes of gloom and terror lost even
the power to harm, which outlives their living growth. Dwarfed and
stunted even of evil, they were compact of the dead rock. Here even
the deadly Upas tree could strike no root into the pestiferous earth.

Then came places where, in the entrance to the Valley of the
Shadow, even solid things lost their substance, and melted in the
dank and cold mists which swept along.

As he passed, the distraught Poet could feel not solid earth
under his bleeding feet. On shadows he walked, and amid them, onward
through the Valley of the Shadow to seek his Beloved One in the
Castle of the King.

The Valley of the Shadow seemed of endless expanse. Circled
by the teeming mist, no eye could pierce to where rose the great
mountains between which the Valley lay.

Yet they stood there-Mount Despair on the one hand, and the Hill
of Fear upon the other.

Hitherto the poor bewildered brain of the Poet had taken no note
of all the dangers, and horrors, and pains which surrounded him-save
only for the lesson which they taught. But now, lost as he was in the
shrouding vapour of the Valley of the Shadow, he could not but think
of the terrors of the way. He was surrounded by grisly phantoms that
ever and anon arose silent in the mist, and were lost again before he
could catch to the full their dread import.

Then there flashed across his soul a terrible thought-

Could it be possible that hither his Beloved One had travelled?
Had there come to her the pains which shook his own form with agony?
Was it indeed necessary that she should have been appalled by all
these surrounding horrors?

At the thought of her, his Beloved One, suffering such pain
and dread, he gave forth one bitter cry that rang through the
solitude-that cleft the vapour of the Valley, and echoed in the
caverns of the mountains of Despair and Fear.

The wild cry prolonged with the agony of the Poet's soul rang
through the Valley, till the shadows that peopled it woke for the
moment into life-in-death. They flitted dimly along, now melting
away and anon springing again into life-till all the Valley of the
Shadow was for once peopled with quickened ghosts.

Oh, in that hour there was agony to the poor distraught Poet's
soul.

But presently there came a calm. When the rush of his first agony
passed, the Poet knew that to the Dead came not the horrors of the
journey that he undertook. To the Quick alone is the horror of the
passage to the Castle of the King. With the thought came to him such
peace that even there-in the dark Valley of the Shadow-stole soft
music that sounded in the desert gloom like the Music of the Spheres.

Then the poor Poet remembered what they had told him; that his
Beloved One had walked through the Valley of the Shadow, that she had
known the Music of the Spheres, and that she abode in the Castle of
the King. So he thought that as he was now in the Valley of the
Shadow, and as he heard the Music of the Spheres, that soon he
should see the Castle of the King where his Beloved One abode. Thus
he went on in hope.

But alas! that very hope was a new pain that ere this he wot
not of.

Hitherto he had gone on blindly, recking not of where he went or
what came a-nigh him, so long as he pressed onward on his quest; but
now the darkness and the peril of the way had new terrors, for he
thought of how they might arrest his course. Such thoughts made the
way long indeed, for the moments seemed an age with hoping. Eagerly
he sought for the end to come, when, beyond the Valley of the Shadow
through which he fared, he should see rising the turrets of the
Castle of the King.

Despair seemed to grow upon him; and as it grew there rang out,
ever louder, the Music of the Spheres.

Onward, ever onward, hurried in mad haste the poor distraught
Poet. The dim shadows that peopled the mist shrank back as he passed,
extending towards him warning hands with long gloomy fingers of deadly
cold. In the bitter silence of the moment, they seemed to say:

"Go back! Go back!"

Louder and louder rang now the Music of the Spheres. Faster and
faster in mad, feverish haste rushed the Poet, amid the shrinking
Shadows of the gloomy valley. The peopling shadows as they faded
away before him, seemed to wail in sorrowful warning:

"Go back! Go back!"

Still in his ears rang ever the swelling tumult of the music.

Faster and faster he rushed onward; till, at last, wearied nature
gave way and he fell prone to earth, senseless, bleeding, and alone.

After a time-how long he could not even guess-he awoke from
his swoon.

For awhile he could not think where he was; and his scattered
senses could not help him.

All was gloom and cold and sadness. A solitude reigned around him,
more deadly than aught he had ever dreamt of. No breeze was in the
air; no movement of a passing cloud. No voice or stir of living thing
in earth, or water, or air. No rustle of leaf or sway of branch-all
was silent, dead, and deserted. Amid the eternal hills of gloom
around, lay the valley devoid of aught that lived or grew.

The sweeping mists with their multitude of peopling shadows had
gone by. The fearsome terrors of the desert even were not there. The
Poet, as he gazed around him, in his utter loneliness, longed for the
sweep of the storm or the roar of the avalanche to break the dread
horror of the silent gloom.

Then the Poet knew that through the Valley of the Shadow had he
come; that scared and maddened though he had been, he had heard the
Music of the Spheres. He thought that now hard by the desolate
Kingdom of Death he trod.

He gazed all around him, fearing lest he should see anywhere the
dread Castle of the King, where his Beloved One abode; and he groaned
as the fear of his heart found voice:

"Not here! oh not here, amid this awful solitude."

Then amid the silence around, upon distant hills his words echoed:

"Not here! oh not here," till with the echoing and re-echoing
rock, the idle wilderness was peopled with voices.

Suddenly the echo voices ceased.

From the lurid sky broke the terrible sound of the thunder peal.
Along the distant skies it rolled. Far away over the endless ring of
the grey horizon it swept-going and returning-pealing-swelling-dying
away. It traversed the aether, muttering now in ominous sound as of
threats, and anon crashing with the voice of dread command.

In its roar came a sound as of a word:

"Onward."

To his knees the Poet sank and welcomed with tears of joy the
sound of the thunder. It swept away as a Power from Above the silent
desolation of the wilderness. It told him that in and above the
Valley of the Shadow rolled the mighty tones of Heaven's command.

Then the Poet rose to his feet, and with new heart went onwards
into the wilderness.

As he went the roll of the thunder died away, and again the
silence of desolation reigned alone.


So time wore on; but never came rest to the weary feet. Onwards,
still onwards he went, with but one memory to cheer him-the echo
of the thunder roll in his ears, as it pealed out in the Valley
of Desolation:

"Onward! Onward!"

Now the road became less and less rocky, as on his way he passed.
The great cliffs sank and dwindled away, and the ooze of the fens
crept upward to the mountain's feet.

At length the hills and hollows of the mountain fastnesses
disappeared. The Wanderer took his way amid mere trackless wastes,
where was nothing but quaking marsh and slime.

On, on he wandered; stumbling blindly with weary feet on the
endless road.

Over his soul crept ever closer the blackness of despair. Whilst
amid the mountain gorges he had been wandering, some small cheer came
from the hope that at any moment some turn in the path might show him
his journey's end. Some entry from a dark defile might expose to him,
looming great in the distance-or even anigh him-the dread Castle of
the King. But now with the flat desolation of the silent marsh around
him, he knew that the Castle could not exist without his seeing it.

He stood for awhile erect, and turned him slowly round, so that
the complete circuit of the horizon was swept by his eager eyes.
Alas! never a sight did he see. Nought was there but the black line
of the horizon, where the sad earth lay against the level sky. All,
all was compact of a silent gloom.

Still on he tottered. His breath came fast and laboured. His weary
limbs quivered as they bore him feebly up. His strength-his life-was
ebbing fast.

On, on, he hurried, ever on, with one idea desperately fixed in
his poor distraught mind-that in the Castle of the King he should
find his Beloved One.

He stumbled and fell. There was no obstacle to arrest his feet;
only from his own weakness he declined.

Quickly he arose and went onward with flying feet. He dreaded
that should he fall he might not be able to arise again.

Again he fell. Again he rose and went on his way desperately,
with blind purpose.

So for a while went he onwards, stumbling and falling; but
arising ever and pausing not on his way. His quest he followed,
of his Beloved One abiding in the Castle of the King.

At last so weak he grew that when he sank he was unable to
rise again.

Feebler and feebler he grew as he lay prone; and over his eager
eyes came the film of death.

But even then came comfort; for he knew that his race was run, and
that soon he would meet his Beloved One in the Halls of the Castle of
the King.

To the wilderness his thoughts he spoke. His voice came forth with
a feeble sound, like the moaning before a storm of the wind as it
passes through reeds in the grey autumn:

"A little longer. Soon I shall meet her in the Halls of the King;
and we shall part no more. For this it is worth to pass through the
Valley of the Shadow and to listen to the Music of the Spheres with
their painful hope. What boots it though the Castle be afar? Quickly
speed the feet of the dead. To the fleeting spirit all distance is
but a span. I fear not now to see the Castle of the King; for there,
within its chiefest Hall, soon shall I meet my Beloved-to part no
more."

Even as he spoke he felt that the end was nigh.

Forth from the marsh before him crept a still, spreading mist.
It rose silently, higher-higher-enveloping the wilderness for far
around. It took deeper and darker shades as it arose. It was as
though the Spirit of Gloom were hid within, and grew mightier with
the spreading vapour.

To the eyes of the dying Poet the creeping mist was as a shadowy
castle. Arose the tall turrets and the frowning keep. The gateway
with its cavernous recesses and its beetling towers took shape as a
skull. The distant battlements towered aloft into the silent air.
From the very ground whereon the stricken Poet lay, grew, dim and
dark, a vast causeway leading into the gloom of the Castle gate.

The dying Poet raised his head and looked. His fast failing
eyes, quickened by the love and hope of his spirit, pierced
through the dark walls of the keep and the gloomy terrors of
the gateway.

There, within the great Hall where the grim King of Terrors
himself holds his court, he saw her whom he sought. She was
standing in the ranks of those who wait in patience for their
Beloved to follow them into the Land of Death.

The Poet knew that he had but a little while to wait, and he was
patient-stricken though he lay, amongst the Eternal Solitudes.

Afar off, beyond the distant horizon, came a faint light as of the
dawn of a coming day.

As it grew brighter the Castle stood out more and more clearly;
till in the quickening dawn it stood revealed in all its cold expanse.

The dying Poet knew that the end was at hand. With a last effort
he raised himself to his feet, that standing erect and bold, as is
the right of manhood, he might so meet face to face the grim King of
Death before the eyes of his Beloved One.

The distant sun of the coming day rose over the horizon's edge.

A ray of light shot upward.

As it struck the summit of the Castle keep the Poet's Spirit in an
instant of time swept along the causeway. Through the ghostly portal
of the Castle it swept, and met with joy the kindred Spirit that it
loved before the very face of the King of Death.

Quicker then than the lightning's flash the whole Castle melted
into nothingness; and the sun of the coming day shone calmly down
upon the Eternal Solitudes.

In the Land within the Portal rose the sun of the coming day. It
shone calmly and brightly on a fair garden, where, among the long
summer grass lay the Poet, colder than the marble statues around him.