University of Virginia Library

XVIII.

I looked up; all seemed as before;
Of that cloud-Tophet overhead
No trace was left: I saw instead
The common round me, and the sky
Above, stretched drear and emptily
Of life. 'T was the last watch of night,
Except what brings the morning quite;
When the armed angel, conscience-clear,
His task nigh done, leans o'er his spear
And gazes on the earth he guards,
Safe one night more through all its wards,
Till God relieve him at his post.
“A dream—a waking dream at most!”
(I spoke out quick, that I might shake
The horrid nightmare off, and wake.)
“The world gone, yet the world is here?
“Are not all things as they appear?
“Is Judgment past for me alone?
“—And where had place the great white throne?
“The rising of the quick and dead?
“Where stood they, small and great? Who read
“The sentence from the opened book?”
So, by degrees, the blood forsook
My heart, and let it beat afresh;
I knew I should break through the mesh
Of horror, and breathe presently:
When, lo, again, the voice by me!