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.
Darkness - written by Lord Byron Narrated by Jordan Harling