IX.

My dream was past; it had no further change. It was of a strange order, that the doom Of these two creatures should be thus traced out Almost like a reality--the one To 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 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 chilled into a selfish prayer for light: And they did live by watchfires--and the thrones, 10 The 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 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 contained; Forests were set on fire--but hour by hour They fell and faded--and the crackling trunks 20 Extinguished 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 clenchéd hands, and smiled; And others hurried to and fro, and fed Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up With mad disquietude on the dull sky, The pall of a past World; and then again 30 With 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 brutes Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawled And 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 bought With blood, and each sate sullenly apart 40 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 devoured, Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one, And he was faithful to a corse, and kept The birds and beasts and famished men at bay, Till hunger clung them,[57] or the dropping dead 50 Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food, But with a piteous and perpetual moan, And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand Which answered not with a caress--he died. The crowd was famished 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 heaped a mass of holy things For an unholy usage; they raked up, 60 And shivering scraped 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[58] Each other's aspects--saw, and shrieked, 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, 70 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 dropped They 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, 80 And the clouds perished; Darkness had no need Of 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 blazed The Comet of a season, and I saw The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed With not the less of sorrow and of awe On that neglected turf and quiet stone, With name no clearer than the names unknown, Which lay unread around it; and I asked The Gardener of that ground, why it might be That for this plant strangers his memory tasked, Through the thick deaths of half a century; 10 And thus he answered--"Well, I do not know Why 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 rip The veil of Immortality, and crave I know not what of honour and of light Through unborn ages, to endure this blight? So soon, and so successless? As I said,[61] The Architect of all on which we tread, 20 For Earth is but a tombstone, did essay To 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 caught As 'twere the twilight of a former Sun,[62] Thus spoke he,--"I believe the man of whom You wot, who lies in this selected[63] tomb, Was a most famous writer in his day, And therefore travellers step from out their way 30 To pay him honour,--and myself whate'er Your honour pleases:"--then most pleased I shook[l] From out my pocket's avaricious nook Some certain coins of silver, which as 'twere Perforce I gave this man, though I could spare So 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 dwell With a deep thought, and with a softened eye, 40 On 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]