Poised as a god whose lone, detachèd post,
A eyrie, pends between the boundary-marks
Of finite years and those unvaried darks
That veil Eternity, I saw the host
Of suns and worlds, swept from the furthermost
Of night— confusion as of dust with sparks—
Whirl toward 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 voidward by the vampire-lips of Sleep !