Darkness I

I had a dream, which was not all a dream

The bright sun was extinguish'd, 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'd 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 gather'd round 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 contain'd;

Forests were set on fire--but hour by hour

They fell and faded--and the crackling trunks

Extinguish'd 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 smiled;

And others hurried to and fro, and fed

Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up

With mad disquietude on the dull sky

The pall of a past world; and then again

With curses cast them down upon the dust

And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd

And, terrified, did flutter on the ground

And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes

Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd

And twined themselves among the multitude

Hissing, but stingless--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 sate sullenly apart

Gorging himself in 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 meagre by the meagre were devour'd

Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one

And he was faithful to a Gorse, and kept

The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay

Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead

Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food

But with a piteous and perpetual moan

And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand

Which answer'd not with a caress--he died

The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two

Of an enormous city did survive

And they were enemies: they met beside

The dying embers of an altar-place

Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things

For an 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, and shriek'd, and died--

Even of their mutual hideousness they

Unknowing who he was upon whose brow

Famine had written Fiend. The world was void

The populous and the powerful was 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 stirr'd within their silent depths;

Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea

And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp'd

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 wither'd in the stagnant air

And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need

Of aid from them--She was the Universe