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         5 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,         10 The palaces of crowned 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         15 Happy were those who dwelt within the eye   Of the volcanoes, 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 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         25 Their chins upon their clenched hands and smiled;   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         30 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         35 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;         45 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         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 answer’d not with a caress—he died.   The crowd was famish’d by degrees; but two         55 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 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         65 Each other’s aspects—saw and shriek’d, and died—   Ev’n 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 stirr’d within their silent depths;   Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,         75 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 expired before;   The winds were wither’d in the stagnant air,         80 And the clouds perish’d; Darkness had no need   Of aid from them—She was the Universe!