I call upon thee Destruction and Death

(Copyrights belong to me)

Darkness, 1816, Byron

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 corse, 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.