The Poems of John Clare :: :: University of Virginia Library

When night's last hours, like haunting spirits, creep
With listening terrors round the couch of sleep,
And midnight, brooding in its deepest dye,
Seizes on fear with dismal sympathy,
‘I dreamed a dream’ something akin to fate,
Which superstition's blackest thoughts create—
Something half natural to the grave that seems,
Which death's long trance of slumber haply dreams;
A dream of staggering horrors, and of dread,
Whose shadows fled not when the vision fled,
But clung to memory with their gloomy view,
Till doubt and fancy half believed it true.

That time was come, or seemed as it was come,
When Death no longer makes the grave his home;
When waking spirits leave their earthly rest
To mix for ever with the damned or blest;
When years, in drowsy thousands counted by,
Are hung on minutes with their destiny:
When Time in terror drops his draining glass,
And all things mortal, like to shadows, pass,
As 'neath approaching tempests sinks the sun—
When Time shall leave Eternity begun.
Life swoon'd in terror at that hour's dread birth
As in an ague, shook the fearful Earth;

400

And shuddering Nature seemed herself to shun;
Whilst trembling Conscience felt the deed was done.

A gloomy sadness round the sky was cast,
Where clouds seemed hurrying with unusual haste;
Winds urged them onward, like to restless ships,
And light dim faded in its last eclipse,
And Agitation turned a straining eye,
And Hope stood watching like a bird to fly,
While suppliant Nature, like a child in dread,
Clung to her fading garments till she fled.

Then awful sights began to be revealed,
Which Death's dark dungeons had so long concealed;
Each grave its doomsday-prisoner resigned,
Bursting in noises like a hollow wind;
And spirits, mingling with the living then,
Thrilled fearful voices with the cries of men.
All flying furious, grinning deep despair,
Shaped dismal shadows on the troubled air:
Red lightning shot its flashes as they came,
And passing clouds seemed kindling into flame;
And strong and stronger came the sulphury smell,
With demons following in the breath of hell,
Laughing in mockery as the doomed complained,
Losing their pains in seeing others pained.

Fierce raged destruction, sweeping o'er the land,
And the last counted moment seemed at hand:
As scales near equal hang the earnest eyes
In doubtful balance which shall fall or rise,
So, in the moment of that crashing blast,
Eyes, hearts, and hopes paused trembling for the last.
Loud burst the thunder's clap, and yawning rents
Gashed the frail garments of the elements;
Then sudden whirlwinds, winged with purple flame
And lightnings' flash, in stronger terrors came;
Burning all life and nature where they fell,
And leaving earth as desolate as hell.

401

The pleasant hues of woods and fields were past,
And nature's beauties had enjoyed their last:
The coloured flower, the green of field and tree,
What they had been for ever ceased to be:
Clouds, raining fire, scorched up the hissing dews;
Grass shrivelled brown in miserable hues;
Leaves fell to ashes in the air's hot breath,
And all awaited universal death.
The sleepy birds, scared from their mossy nest,
Beat through the evil air in vain for rest;
And many a one, the withering shades among,
Wakened to perish o'er its brooded young.
The cattle, startled with the sudden fright,
Sickened from food, and maddened into flight;
And steed and beast in plunging speed pursued
The desperate struggle of the multitude.
The faithful dogs yet knew their owners' face,
And cringing followed with a fearful pace,
Joining the piteous yell with panting breath,
While blasting lightnings followed fast with death;
Then, as destruction stopt the vain retreat,
They dropped, and dying licked their masters' feet.

When sudden thunders paused, loud went the shriek,
And groaning agonies, too much to speak,
From hurrying mortals, who, with ceaseless fears,
Recalled the errors of their vanished years,
Flying in all directions, hope-bereft,
Followed by dangers that would not be left,
Offering wild vows, and begging loud for aid,
Where none was nigh to help them when they prayed.
None stood to listen, or to soothe a friend,
But all complained, and sorrow had no end.
Sons from their fathers, fathers sons did fly,
The strongest fled, and left the weak to die;
Pity was dead: none heeded for another;
Brother left brother; and the frantic mother
For fruitless safety hurried east and west,
And dropped the babe to perish from her breast:

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All howling prayers that would be noticed never,
And craving mercy that was fled for ever.
While earth, in motion like a troubled sea,
Opened in gulphs of dread immensity,
Amid the wild confusions of despair,
And buried deep the howling and the prayer
Of countless multitudes, and closed—and then
Opened, and swallowed multitudes agen.

Stars drunk with dread rolled giddy from the heaven,
And staggering worlds like wrecks in storms were driven;
The pallid moon hung fluttering on the sight,
As startled bird whose wings are stretched for flight;
And o'er the east a fearful light begun
To show the sun rise—not the morning sun,
But one in wild confusion, doomed to rise
And drop again in horror from the skies;
To heaven's midway it reeled, and changed to blood,
Then dropped, and light rushed after like a flood.
The heaven's blue curtains rent and shrank away,
And heaven itself seem'd threaten'd with decay;
While hopeless distance with a boundless stretch
Flashed on despair the joy it could not reach,
A moment's mockery—ere the last dim light
Vanished, and left an everlasting night:
And with that light Hope fled, and shrieked farewell,
And hell in yawning echoes mocked that yell.

Now Night resumed her uncreated vest,
And chaos came again, but not its rest;
The melting glooms, that spread perpetual stains,
Kept whirling on in endless hurricanes;
And tearing noises, like a troubled sea,
Broke up that silence which no more would be.

The reeling earth sank loosened from its stay,
And nature's wrecks all felt their last decay.
The yielding, burning soil, that fled my feet,
I seemed to feel, and struggled to retreat;

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And midst the dreads of horror's mad extreme
I lost all notion of its being a dream:
Sinking, I fell through depths that seemed to be
As far from fathom as Eternity;
While dismal faces on the darkness came,
With wings of dragons, and with fangs of flame,
Writhing in agonies of wild despairs,
And giving tidings of a doom like theirs.
I felt all terrors of the damned, and fell
With conscious horror that my doom was hell:
And Memory mocked me, like a haunting ghost,
With light and life and pleasures that were lost.
As dreams turn night to day, and day to night,
So Memory flashed her shadows of that light
That once bade morning suns in glory rise,
To bless green fields and trees and purple skies,
And wakened life its pleasures to behold;—
That light flashed on me, like a story told;
And days misspent with friends and fellow men,
And sins committed—all were with me then.
The boundless hell, where tortures never tire,
Glimmered beneath me like a world on fire:
That soul of fire, like to its souls entombed,
Consuming on, and ne'er to be consumed,
Seemed nigh at hand—where oft the sulphury damps
O'er-awed its light, as glimmer dying lamps,
Spreading a horrid gloom from side to side,
A twilight scene of terrors half descried.
Sad boiled the billows of that burning sea,
And Fate's sad yellings dismal seemed to be;
Blue rolled its waves with horrors uncontrolled,
And its live wrecks of souls dashed howling as they rolled.

Again I struggled, and the spell was broke,
And midst the laugh of mocking ghosts I woke;
My eyes were opened on an unhoped sight—
The early morning and its welcome light,
And, as I pondered o'er the past profound,
I heard the cock crow, and I blest the sound.