DARKNESS

door Lord Byron (1816)

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 corpse, 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.