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| I HAD a dream, which was not all 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 | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| Happy were those who dwelt within the eye | |
| Of the volcanoes, 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 | 20 |
| Extinguish’d 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 | 25 |
| Their chins upon their clenched hands and smiled; | |
| 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 | 30 |
| 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 | 35 |
| 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 | 40 |
| 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; | 45 |
| 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 | 50 |
| 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 answer’d not with a caress—he died. | |
| The crowd was famish’d by degrees; but two | 55 |
| Of an enormous city did survive, | |
| And they were enemies: they met beside | |
| The dying embers of an altar-place, | |
| Where had been heap’d a mass of holy things | |
| For an unholy usage; they raked up, | 60 |
| 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 | 65 |
| Each other’s aspects—saw and shriek’d, and died— | |
| Ev’n 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, | 70 |
| 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, | 75 |
| 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 expired before; | |
| The winds were wither’d in the stagnant air, | 80 |
| And the clouds perish’d; Darkness had no need | |
| Of aid from them—She was the Universe! | |
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