I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the
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
Of this their desolation; and all
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
To look once more into each other's face; Happy were those who dwelt within the
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
Extinguish'd with a crash--and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down And hid their eyes and wept; and some did
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers
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
With blood, and each sate sullenly
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought--and that was
Immediate and inglorious; and the
Of famine fed upon all
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
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay, Till hunger clung them, or the dropping
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the
Which answer'd not with a caress--he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met
The dying embers of an
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy
For an unholy usage; they raked up,
And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton
The feeble ashes, and their feeble
Blew for a little life, and made a
Which was a mockery; then they lifted
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld Each other's aspects--saw, and shriek'd, and died--Even of their mutual hideousness
Unknowing who he was upon whose
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
They slept on the abyss without a
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
Of aid from them--She was the Universe.
Diodati,
July 1816.
