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Darkness
[Originally entitled 'The Dream']
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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;
��� 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.
� 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 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.
� 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
� 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,
� 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 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.
� 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 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.
Diodati, July 1816 �����
lord Byron
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