CHAPTER XVII.--CHAOS.

Upward, Time! Outward and upward in desperate flight once more, Let’s peer into a region we dare not, cannot cross o’er. Ah! the light is fading fast on our right and rear, And the deep’ning pallid gloom fills our minds with fear; Still upward those nebulous regions float away Into eternal mystery, solemn, grim, and gray!

Hold, Time! Stay, in mercy stay the dread rushing of thy car; For on our front and left, deep, deadly and afar, Rise walls of appalling blackness that grimly bar The way, and no faint twinkle of flickering star Lights up the impenetrable horror of gloom, Chilling the very soul, like an impending doom.

Is this the lone region of death and fell despair? And is hell with all its fury lurking there? Do Satan and Apollyon roam those deadly deeps, Gloating o’er the suffering of the damned that ne’er sleeps? Was’t there the rebellious hosts of heaven found their doom, To shriek in nameless torture in so dread a tomb?

Hist! hist! did ye hear it? that shuddering roll Of frenzied anguish, creeping up from damnation’s goal?

O relentless Time! Let’s flee away from this dread sphere; Surely death and annihilation wait us here! With the help of heaven let us retreat! away, Or we’re lost! Loose thy car on our returning way! Get thy bearings, and, like a swift heavenly ray Of light, stream downward by the spaces and the voids, Like a meteor by the planets and asteroids.

Ah, this fearful sense of falling brings a pall Of impending danger! yet ecstasy withal Comes to us in this thrilling, evanishing fall, And up the starlit space I hear the faint, far call Of heavenly choirs to the legions of the blest. All worn in mind the spirit sinks to peaceful rest, And dreams of home come to me where all life is free; The years that knew no care return again to me. But Time, that never sleeps nor rests, wakes me once more; And we’re descending still, and near our pale moon’s shore. It seems a fitting space for so fair a silver queen, Floating in luminous splendor, smiling and serene.