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 mooniess 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 player 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 round their blazing homes To look once more into each other 's face:
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 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.
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.
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.
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 depth. 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.
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 there 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 shrieked, and died - Even of their mutual hideousness they died, Unknowing who he was upon whose brow Famine had written Fiend.
The tides were in the 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.