Darkness.[k][56]

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 chilled into a selfish prayer for light:     And they did live by watchfires - and the thrones,     The palaces of crownd kings - the huts,     The habitations of all things which dwell,     Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,     And men were gathered 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 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 clenchd hands, and smiled;     And others hurried to and fro, and fed     Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked 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 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 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 devoured,     Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one,     And he was faithful to a corse, and kept     The birds and beasts and famished men at bay,     Till hunger clung them,[57] 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 answered not with a caress - he died.     The crowd was famished 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 heaped 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[58]     Each other's aspects - saw, and 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 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 stirred within their silent depths;     Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,     And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropped     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.     Diodati, July, 1816.                 [First published, Prisoner of Chillon, etc., 1816.]