Amid the gloom and fearful silences.

Slowly the darkness paled, and a weird dawn

Broke on my wondering vision, and there grew

Uncanny phosphorescence in the air

Which seemed to throb with some great vital spell

Of mystery and doom. With aching eyes

I gazed, and lo! the dreadful scene evolved,

Black and chaotic, like an awful birth

To Desolation, of a lifeless world!

My soul in agony cried out to God,

When of a sudden all the place grew calm,

Save for the trembling of the mountain peaks

And the low moaning of the billowy winds

Among the abysses. Dull lights here and there

Kindled, like wreckage of a city razed

[2]

By vandals, and the inky sky cupped up

Into a black, impenetrable roof....

But now from out the chaos there arose

Another sound more fearful than the wail

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