Darkness

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 forget their passions in dread

Of this their desolation;

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 stirred within their silent depths;

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,

And the clouds perish'd; darkness had no need

Of aid from them - she was the universe