476. Darkness

George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788—1824)

  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

  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 consumed,

  And men were gathered round their blazing homes

  To look once more into each other’s face

  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

  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

  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

  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 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

  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 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

  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

  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,

  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

  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,

  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 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,

  And the clouds perish’d; Darkness had no need

  Of aid from them—She was the Universe!