Testo Darkness

Adapted from the original poem ‘Darkness'
written by Lord Byron during the
Year Without a Summer, MDCCCXVI

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:
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye.
A fearful hope was all
the world contain'd:
The pall of a past world:
And vipers crawl'd
And twin'd themselves
among the multitude.
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.
The meagre by the meagre
were devoured.
Even dogs assail'd their masters.
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 raked up.
And shivering scraped 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 stirred within
their silent depths:

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.