Darkness

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.

The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars

Did wander darkling in the eternal space,

Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;

Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,

And men forgot their passions in the dread

Of this their desolation; and all hearts

Were chill into a selfish prayer for light:

And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones,

The palaces of crowned kings—the huts,

The habitations of all things which dwell,

Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,

And men were gathered around their blazing homes

To look once more into each other's face;

Happy were those who dwelt within the eye

Of the volcanos, and their mountain torch:

A fearful hope was all the world contained;

Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour

They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks

Extinguished with a crash—and all was black.

The brows of men by the despairing light

Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits

The flashes fell upon them; some lay down

And hid their eyes and wept, and some did rest

Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smil'd;

And others hurried to and fro, and fed

Their funeral was piled with fuel and looked up

With mad disquietude in the dull sky,

The pall of a past world; and then again

With curses cast them down upon the dust,

And gnashed their teeth and howled: the wild birds shrieked

And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,

And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes

Came tame and tremulous, and vipers crawled

And twined themselves among the multitude,

Hissing, but stingless—they were slain for food.

And War, which for a moment was no more,

Did glut himself again: a meal was bought

With blood, and each state sullenly apart

Gorging himself in the gloom: no love was left;

All earth was but one thought—and that was death

Immediate and inglorious; and the pang

Of famine fed upon all entrails—men

Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;

The meager by the meager were devoured,

Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one,

And he was faithful to a course and kept

The birds and beasts and famished men at bay,

Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead

Lur'd their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,

But with a piteous and perpetual moan,

And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand

Which answered not with a caress—he died.

The crowd was famished by degrees; but two

If an enormous city did survive,

And they were enemies: they met beside

The dying embers of an altar-place

Where had been heaped a mass of holy things

For unholy usage; they raked up,

And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands

The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath

Blew for a little life, and made a flame

Which was a mockery; then they lifted up

Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld

Each other's aspects—saw, shrieked, and died—

Even of their mutual hideousness, they died,

Unknowing who he was upon whose brow

Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,

The populous and the powerful were a lump,

Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless—

A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.

The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,

And nothing stirred within their silent depths;

Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,

And their masts fell piecemeal: as they drop

They slept on the abyss without a surge—

The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,

The moon, their mistress, had expired before;

The winds were withered in the stagnant air,

And the clouds perished; Darkness had no need

Of aid from them—She was the Universe.