The night was hushed and the street was dark; Dimly came the flicker of the lone pale arc. And dreary from the corner, a chill wind stole, Huddling past the desolate yards of coal. But while I peered at the yards of gloom And saw how the heaps lay dark as doom, I heard a crackle and I heard a roar -- And the black piled coal was seen no more! -- Night was shattered -- and Time in the street Fell into fragments about my feet! I saw before me how the forests towered, How the fronds and the ferns and the creepers flowered; I saw the jungles of gigantic grasses; I saw the waving of the monstrous masses; And the looping mosses and the crowding spores! -- I watched how the greenery leaps and pours Down from the branches in a rich green blaze, Flooding on the tangle of the riotous maze! But more than this, I could feel the heat Soak on the forest and simmer and beat! I spied dim swamps and I spied wide lakes, Where hissed and threaded the huge red snakes; I saw the lizard and Okapi lunge; And the rearing Brontosaurus thrash and plunge! But while they were battling in the bellowing din, I heard a peal and a crash begin: Earthquakes weltered and convulsions tore -- I heard Chaos dance -- I heard Chaos roar -- The deafening jungles were hurled down deep -- Earth closed over. . . . Then in one swift sweep, Burying forest and beast and tree, Years came flooding like a wild white sea! Again I stood in the hush of night Underneath the flicker of the lone pale light; And I gazed at jungles and their fronds and ferns -- Jungles of foliage in a heat that burns -- Jungles with sunlight and beasts, -- the whole Huddled and crowded into pieces of coal! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THREE GRAINS OF CORN; THE IRISH FAMINE by AMELIA BLANDFORD EDWARDS WHEN I BUY PICTURES by MARIANNE MOORE RAILROAD RHYME by JOHN GODFREY SAXE BETH GELERT; OR, THE GRAVE OF THE GREYHOUND by WILLIAM ROBERT SPENCER THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY by ALFRED TENNYSON THIS COMPOST: 2. by WALT WHITMAN THE LAST MAN: RECEPTION OF EVIL TIDINGS by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES |