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And stood a little span outside herself And looked into her subtle being's depths And in its heart as in a lotus-bud Divined her secret and mysterious soul. At the dim portal of the inner life That bars out from our depths the body's mind And all that lives but by the body's breath, She knocked and pressed against the ebony gate. The living portal groaned with sullen hinge: Heavily reluctant it complained inert Against the tyranny of the spirit's touch. A formidable voice cried from within: "Back, creature of earth, lest tortured and torn thou die." A dreadful murmur rose like a dim sea; The Serpent of the threshold hissing rose, A fatal guardian hood with monstrous coils, The hounds of darkness growled with jaws agape, And trolls and gnomes and goblins scowled and stared And wild beast roarings thrilled the blood with fear And menace muttered in a dangerous tongue. Unshaken her will pressed on the rigid bars: The gate swung wide with a protesting jar, The opponent Powers withdrew their dreadful guard; Her being entered into the inner worlds. In a narrow passage, the subconscient's gate, She breathed with difficulty and pain and strove To find the inner self concealed in sense. Into a dense of subtle Matter packed, A cavity filled with a blind mass of power, An opposition of misleading gleams, A heavy barrier of unseeing sight, She forced her way through body to the soul. Across a perilous border line she passed Where Life dips into the subconscient dusk Or struggles from Matter into chaos of mind, Aswarm with elemental entities 
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