And crack and crumble, and

There is a flame of wind

Wherewith the burning sand

Is ever mass’d and thin’d.

Even the sickly Sun

Is dimmÈd by the dearth,

And screaming dead leaves run

About the desolate earth.

Die then; we are accurst!

And strike, consuming God!

The very tigers thirst

Too much to drink of blood;

The eagle soareth not;

The viper bites herself;

The vulture hath forgot

To rend the dying wolf.

The world is white with heat;

The world is rent and riv’n;

The world and heavens meet;

The lost stars cry in heav’n.

* * *

II

Art thou an Angel—speak,

Stupendous Cloud that comest?

What wrath on whom to wreak?

Redeemest thou, or doomest?

Thine eyes are of the dead;

A flame within thy breast

Thy giant wings outspread,

Like Death’s, upon the west

Thy lifted locks of hair

Are flames of fluttering fire;

Thy countenance, of Despair

Made mad with inner ire.

III

Who cries! The night is black

As death and not as night;

The world is fallen back

To nothing; sound and light

And moon and stars and skies,

Thunder and lightning—all

Gone, gone! Not even cries

The cricket in the hall,

The dog without. At last

The end of all the hours.

Was that a Spirit pass’d

Between the slamming doors?

We slept not yet we wake!

Was it a voice that cried,

‘Awake, ye sleepless; wake,

Ye deathless who have died’?

No voice. No light, no sound.

It was the fancy that

At midnight makes rebound

Of thoughts we labour at

At mid-day. Let us sleep.

The night is very black,

The heat a madness—sleep

Before the day comes back.

Who cries!—The voice again!

It is the storm that breaks!

The tempest and the rain!

The quivering crash that shakes!

The thunder and the flash,

The brand that rips and roars,

The winds of God that dash

And split a thousand doors!

The chariots of God

That gallop on the plain

And shake the solid sod!

Awake!—The rain, the rain!

Thunder and burst, O Sky;

Thunder and boil, O Deep;

Let the thick thunder cry;

Let the live lightning leap!

Smite white light like the sword

Of Heav’n from heav’n’s height;

Consume the thing abhor’d

And quell the dreadful night!

Smite white light like the brand

Of God from heav’n to earth;

And purge the desolate land

Of this destroying dearth!

IV

O Wilderness of Death,

O Desert rent and riv’n,

Where art thou?—for the breath

Of heav’n hath made thee Heav’n.

I know not now these ways;

The rocky rifts are gone,

Deep-verdured like the braes

Of blest Avilion.

Here where there were no flowers

The heav’nly waters flow,

And thro’ a thousand bowers

Innum’rable blossoms blow.

* * *