The Death of Time
"'Tis finished!"
The sum of all that is or was is full,
And from the shattered glass of dying Time
The last sand trembling, slips.
The sun no longer speeds upon his path,
But, like some monstrous, ghastly funeral pyre,
Smokes in the firmament.
Silent and eold, transfixed in rayless depths,
The planet sentries wait the next command;
The tenantry of Earth are locked in death;
While yet the ruined, crumbling globe itself
Hangs faltering in the brazen empyrean.
"'Tis finished!"
As creeps some giant shadow, these words creep,
In music tones, throughout God's vast estate.
Though soft and gentle as All-loving Love,
They sway and stir the rimless realms of space;
Convulse the star-gemmed arch; shatter its spheres;
Unmake the universe!
Fulfilled their destiny, the countless worlds
Drop piecemeal from their age-long settings;
The blazing beacon of the sky expires;
The Earth to primal elements returns,
And Death, its sternest despot, headlong falls
Athwart his ebon throne.
Upon the bosom of the pulseless night,
That broods in dreadful majesty where once
The flaming subjects of the Sun stood guard
Amid the trackless depths,
Are borne th' innumerable multitudes
That seek, unsummoned, the glitt'ring precincts
Of celestial beauty.
The silence breaks! The fleecy raven plumes
Of wide, o'er-arching Dark
Are ruffled by the variant notes that beat—
Triumphant and despairful—sweet and harsh—
Against the unsubstantial walls that bound
The black and empty vault;
For all who lived, in strong, resistless tide,
Sweep on to Judgment!
