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

(George Gordon Byron, 1896)