IX.

What next befell me then and there I know not well--I never knew-- First came the loss of light, and air, And then of darkness too: I had no thought, no feeling--none-- Among the stones I stood a stone,[21] And was, scarce conscious what I wist, As shrubless crags within the mist; For all was blank, and bleak, and grey; It was not night--it was not day; 240 It was not even the dungeon-light, So hateful to my heavy sight, But vacancy absorbing space, And fixedness--without a place; There were no stars--no earth--no time-- No check--no change--no good--no crime-- But silence, and a stirless breath Which neither was of life nor death; A sea of stagnant idleness, Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless! 250