Finis

It seemed that from the west         The live red flame of sunset,         Eating the dead blue sky         And cold insensate peaks,         Was loosened slowly, and fell.         Above it, a few red stars         Burned down like low candle-flames         Into the gaunt black sockets         Of the chill insensible mountains.         But in the ascendant skies         (Cloudless, like some vast corpse         Unfeatured, cerementless)         Succeeded nor star nor planet.         It may have been that black,         Pulseless, dead stars arose         And crossed as of old the heavens.         But came no living orb,         Nor comet seeming the ghost,         Homeless, of an outcast world,         Seeking its former place         That is no more nor shall be         In all the Cosmos again.         Null, blank, and meaningless         As a burnt scroll that blackens         With the passing of the fire,         Lay the dead infinite sky.         Lo! in the halls of Time,         I thought, the torches are out -         The revelry of the gods,         Or lamentation of demons         For which their flames were lit,         Over and quiet at last         With the closing peace of night,         Whose dumb, dead, passionless skies         Enfold the living world         As the sea a sinking pebble.