1 I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
2 The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
3 Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
4 Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
5 Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
6 Morn came and went--and came, and brought no day,
7 And men forgot their passions in the dread
8 Of this their desolation; and all hearts
9 Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
10 And they did live by watchfires--and the thrones,
11 The palaces of crowned kings--the huts,
12 The habitations of all things which dwell,
13 Were burnt for beacons; cities were consum'd,
14 And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
15 To look once more into each other's face;
16 Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
17 Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
18 A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
19 Forests were set on fire--but hour by hour
20 They fell and faded--and the crackling trunks
21 Extinguish'd with a crash--and all was black.
22 The brows of men by the despairing light
23 Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
24 The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
25 And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
26 Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smil'd;
27 And others hurried to and fro, and fed
28 Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up
29 With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
30 The pall of a past world; and then again
31 With curses cast them down upon the dust,
32 And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd
33 And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
34 And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
35 Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
36 And twin'd themselves among the multitude,
37 Hissing, but stingless--they were slain for food.
38 And War, which for a moment was no more,
39 Did glut himself again: a meal was bought
40 With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
41 Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
42 All earth was but one thought--and that was death
43 Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
44 Of famine fed upon all entrails--men
45 Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
46 The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,
47 Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
48 And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
49 The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
50 Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
51 Lur'd their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
52 But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
53 And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
54 Which answer'd not with a caress--he died.
55 The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
56 Of an enormous city did survive,
57 And they were enemies: they met beside
58 The dying embers of an altar-place
59 Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
60 For an unholy usage; they rak'd up,
61 And shivering scrap'd with their cold skeleton hands
62 The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
63 Blew for a little life, and made a flame
64 Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
65 Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
66 Each other's aspects--saw, and shriek'd, and died--
67 Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
68 Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
69 Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
70 The populous and the powerful was a lump,
71 Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless--
72 A lump of death--a chaos of hard clay.
73 The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still,
74 And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;
75 Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
76 And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp'd
77 They slept on the abyss without a surge--
78 The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
79 The moon, their mistress, had expir'd before;
80 The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
81 And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
82 Of aid from them--She was the Universe.
Together with the editors, the Department of English (University of Toronto), and the University of Toronto Press, the following individuals share copyright for the work that went into this edition:
Screen Design (Electronic Edition):
Sian Meikle (University of Toronto Library)
Scanning:
Sharine Leung (Centre for Computing in the Humanities)
Form:
mainly unrhymed
Composition Date:
July 1816