The Star-Treader and Other Poems

Poised as a god whose lone, detachèd post,

An eyrie, pends between the boundary-marks

Of finite years, and those unvaried darks

That veil Eternity, I saw the host

Of worlds and suns, swept from the furthermost

Of night—confusion as of dust with sparks—

Whirl tow'rd the opposing brink; as one who harks

Some warning trumpet, Time, a withered ghost,

Fled with them; disunited orbs that late

Were atoms of the universal frame,

They passed to some eternal fragment-heap.

And, lo, the gods, from space discorporate,

Who were its life and vital spirit, came,

Drawn outward by the vampire-lips of Sleep!