• Lord Caine Of Nod's Gallery
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  • Artist Info: Darkness by Lord Byron<br />
    <br />
    I had a dream, which was not all a dream.<br />
    The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars<br />
    Did wander darkling in the eternal space,<br />
    Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth<br />
    Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;<br />
    Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,<br />
    And men forgot their passions in the dread<br />
    Of this their desolation; and all hearts<br />
    Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light;<br />
    And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones,<br />
    The palaces of crowned kings—the huts,<br />
    The habitations of all things which dwell,<br />
    Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,<br />
    And men were gathered round their blazing homes<br />
    To look once more into each other's face;<br />
    Happy were those which dwelt within the eye<br />
    Of the volcanoes, and their mountain-torch;<br />
    A fearful hope was all the world contained;<br />
    Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour<br />
    They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks<br />
    Extinguished with a crash—and all was black.<br />
    The brows of men by the despairing light<br />
    Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits<br />
    The flashes fell upon them: some lay down<br />
    And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest<br />
    Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;<br />
    And others hurried to and fro, and fed<br />
    Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up<br />
    With mad disquietude on the dull sky,<br />
    The pall of a past world; and then again<br />
    With curses cast them down upon the dust,<br />
    And gnashed their teeth and howled; the wild birds shrieked,<br />
    And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,<br />
    And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes<br />
    Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawled<br />
    And twined themselves among the multitude,<br />
    Hissing, but stingless—they were slain for food;<br />
    And War, which for a moment was no more,<br />
    Did glut himself again;—a meal was bought<br />
    With blood, and each sate sullenly apart<br />
    Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;<br />
    All earth was but one thought—and that was death,<br />
    Immediate and inglorious; and the pang<br />
    Of famine fed upon all entrails—men<br />
    Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;<br />
    The meagre by the meagre were devoured,<br />
    Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one,<br />
    And he was faithful to a corse, and kept<br />
    The birds and beasts and famished men at bay,<br />
    Till hunger clung them, or the drooping dead<br />
    Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,<br />
    But with a piteous and perpetual moan,<br />
    And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand<br />
    Which answered not with a caress—he died.<br />
    The crowd was famished by degrees; but two<br />
    Of an enormous city did survive,<br />
    And they were enemies: they met beside<br />
    The dying embers of an altar-place<br />
    Where had been heaped a mass of holy things<br />
    For an unholy usage: they raked up,<br />
    And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands<br />
    The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath<br />
    Blew for a little life, and made a flame<br />
    Which was a mockery; then they lifted up<br />
    Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld<br />
    Each other's aspects—saw, and shrieked, and died—<br />
    Even of their mutual hideousness they died,<br />
    Unknowing who he was upon whose brow<br />
    Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,<br />
    The populous and the powerful was a lump,<br />
    Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless—<br />
    A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.<br />
    The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,<br />
    And nothing stirred within their silent depths;<br />
    Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,<br />
    And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropped<br />
    They slept on the abyss without a surge—<br />
    The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,<br />
    The Moon, their mistress, had expired before;<br />
    The winds were withered in the stagnant air,<br />
    And the clouds perished! Darkness had no need<br />
    Of aid from them—She was the Universe!
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