IX.
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hat next befell me then and thereI know not well--I never knew--First came the loss of light, and air,And then of darkness too:I had no thought, no feeling--none--Among the stones I stood a stone,[21]And was, scarce conscious what I wist,As shrubless crags within the mist;For all was blank, and bleak, and grey;It was not night--it was not day; 240It was not even the dungeon-light,So hateful to my heavy sight,But vacancy absorbing space,And fixedness--without a place;There were no stars--no earth--no time--No check--no change--no good--no crime--But silence, and a stirless breathWhich neither was of life nor death;A sea of stagnant idleness,Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless! 250
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