The Nameless Quest in The Gate of the Sanctuary from The Temple of the Holy Ghost (Collected Works, Vol I) by Aleister Crowley.

“I passed, confounded, lifeless as the clay,
Somewhere I knew not. Many a dismal league
Of various terror wove me its intrigue,
And many a demon daunted: day by day
Death dogged despair, and misery fatigue.” [via]

Consider also:

  1. “A spirit walking in a dream, I went To the high throne–they shook the firmament With foolish cheers. I knelt before the queen And wept in silence. Then, as it had been And angel’s voice and touch, her face she bent, Lifted and kissed me–oh! her lips were keen! Her voice was softer than a virgin’s eyes: ‘Go! my true knight: for thither, thither lies The only road for thee; thou hast a prayer Wafted each hour–my spirit will be there!’ Too late I knew what subtle Paradise Her dreams and prayers portend: too fresh, too fair! I turned more wretched than myself knew yet. I told my nameless pain I should forget Its shadow as it passed.”
  2. “Where am I? Seven days my spirit fell, Down, down the whirlpools and the gulfs of hell: Seven days a corpse lay desolate–at last Back drew the spirit and the soul aghast To animate that clay–O horrible! The resurrection pang is hardly past. Yet in awhile I stumbled to my feet To flee–no nightmare could be worse to meet. And, spite of that, I knew some deadlier trap Some worm more poisonous would set–mayhap!”
  3. “I must have listened to the voice of hell. The earthly horror wove its serpent spell Against the Beauty of the World: I heard Desolate voices cry the doleful word “Unready!” All the soul invisible Of that vast desert echoed, and concurred. The voices died in mystery away.”
  4. “I turned–the path? My horror was complete– A flaming sword across the earthquake gap. I cried aloud to God in my despair. ‘The quest of quests! I seek it, for I dare! Moonward! on, moonward!'”
  5. “Pale specters of the stars, corpse-lights, bad-ghosts Sicken the icy glamour of the moon Upon the vacant earth; and where the sea Marshals sepulchral billows, obscene hosts Of harpies gibber weirdly. I should swoon For the silence, rolled not some dread minstrelsy In fearful anguish on the shuddering air, Breathing out terror and lightning to the night That widely echoes back Hell’s venomous spite, And shrieks aloud the watchword of despair To draw each pain racked nerve more tense and gray For I am alone, unloved, in murk and gloom, Unloved, unfriended, fittest for the tomb, Who worshipped golden feet and found them clay.”