 |
| Darkness |
—LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON), 1816
 |
| I had a dream, which was not 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 consum'd,
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.
 |
| And hid their eyes and wept |
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 smil'd;
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 twin'd
themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but
stingless—they were slain for food.
 |
| Did glut himself again |
Did glut himself
again: a meal was bought
With blood, and
each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself
in gloom: no love was left;
 |
| Even dogs assail'd their masters |
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 corse, and kept
The birds and
beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger
clung them, or the dropping dead
Lur'd 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,
 |
| They met beside the dying embers |
The dying embers
of an altar-place
Where had been
heap'd a mass of holy things
For an unholy
usage; they rak'd up,
And shivering
scrap'd 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 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.
 |
| And nothing stirr'd... |
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 expir'd 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.
The Art:
Black-Eyes by kpep
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