Darkness

I had a dream, which was not all a dream

The bright sun was extinguish'd and the stars

Did wander darkling in the internal 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, 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 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 volcanoes 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

Crackling trunks extinguish'd with a crash

And all earth was one thought and that was death

And all was black

All was black

Darkness

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 stirred 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

And 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

She was the universe

Darkness

She was the universe

Darkness