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y dream was past; it had no further change.It was of a strange order, that the doomOf these two creatures should be thus traced outAlmost like a reality--the oneTo end in madness--both in misery. _July_, 1816. [First published, _The Prisoner of Chillon_, etc., 1816.] DARKNESS.[k][56] I had a dream, which was not all a dream.The bright sun was extinguished, and the starsDid wander darkling in the eternal space,Rayless, and pathless, and the icy EarthSwung blind and blackening in the moonless air;Morn came and went--and came, and brought no day,And men forgot their passions in the dreadOf this their desolation; and all heartsWere chilled into a selfish prayer for light:And they did live by watchfires--and the thrones, 10The palaces of crownéd kings--the huts,The habitations of all things which dwell,Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,And men were gathered round their blazing homesTo look once more into each other's face;Happy were those who dwelt within the eyeOf the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:A fearful hope was all the World contained;Forests were set on fire--but hour by hourThey fell and faded--and the crackling trunks 20Extinguished with a crash--and all was black.The brows of men by the despairing lightWore an unearthly aspect, as by fitsThe flashes fell upon them; some lay downAnd hid their eyes and wept; and some did restTheir chins upon their clenchéd hands, and smiled;And others hurried to and fro, and fedTheir funeral piles with fuel, and looked upWith mad disquietude on the dull sky,The pall of a past World; and then again 30With curses cast them down upon the dust,And gnashed their teeth and howled: the wild birds shrieked,And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutesCame tame and tremulous; and vipers crawledAnd 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 boughtWith blood, and each sate sullenly apart 40Gorging himself in gloom: no Love was left;All earth was but one thought--and that was Death,Immediate and inglorious; and the pangOf famine fed upon all entrails--menDied, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;The meagre by the meagre were devoured,Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one,And he was faithful to a corse, and keptThe birds and beasts and famished men at bay,Till hunger clung them,[57] or the dropping dead 50Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,But with a piteous and perpetual moan,And a quick desolate cry, licking the handWhich answered not with a caress--he died.The crowd was famished by degrees; but twoOf an enormous city did survive,And they were enemies: they met besideThe dying embers of an altar-placeWhere had been heaped a mass of holy thingsFor an unholy usage; they raked up, 60And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton handsThe feeble ashes, and their feeble breathBlew for a little life, and made a flameWhich was a mockery; then they lifted upTheir eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld[58]Each other's aspects--saw, and shrieked, and died--Even of their mutual hideousness they died,Unknowing who he was upon whose browFamine had written Fiend. The World was void,The populous and the powerful was a lump, 70Seasonless, 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 depths;Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they droppedThey 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 withered in the stagnant air, 80And the clouds perished; Darkness had no needOf aid from them--She was the Universe. Diodati, _July_, 1816. [First published, _Prisoner of Chillon_, etc., 1816.] CHURCHILL'S GRAVE,[59] A FACT LITERALLY RENDERED.[60] I stood beside the grave of him who blazedThe Comet of a season, and I sawThe humblest of all sepulchres, and gazedWith not the less of sorrow and of aweOn that neglected turf and quiet stone,With name no clearer than the names unknown,Which lay unread around it; and I askedThe Gardener of that ground, why it might beThat for this plant strangers his memory tasked,Through the thick deaths of half a century; 10And thus he answered--"Well, I do not knowWhy frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so;He died before my day of Sextonship,And I had not the digging of this grave."And is this all? I thought,--and do we ripThe veil of Immortality, and craveI know not what of honour and of lightThrough unborn ages, to endure this blight?So soon, and so successless? As I said,[61]The Architect of all on which we tread, 20For Earth is but a tombstone, did essayTo extricate remembrance from the clay,Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's thought,Were it not that all life must end in one,Of which we are but dreamers;--as he caughtAs 'twere the twilight of a former Sun,[62]Thus spoke he,--"I believe the man of whomYou wot, who lies in this selected[63] tomb,Was a most famous writer in his day,And therefore travellers step from out their way 30To pay him honour,--and myself whate'erYour honour pleases:"--then most pleased I shook[l]From out my pocket's avaricious nookSome certain coins of silver, which as 'twerePerforce I gave this man, though I could spareSo much but inconveniently:--Ye smile,I see ye, ye profane ones! all the while,Because my homely phrase the truth would tell.You are the fools, not I--for I did dwellWith a deep thought, and with a softened eye, 40On that old Sexton's natural homily,In which there was Obscurity and Fame,--The Glory and the Nothing of a Name. Diodati, 1816.[First published, _Prisoner of Chillon_, etc., 1816.] PROMETHEUS.[64]
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