And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand Which answered not with a caress--he died. The crowd was famished by degrees; but two Of an enormous city did survive, And they were enemies: they met beside The dying embers of an altar-place Where had been heaped a mass of holy things For an unholy usage; they raked up, 60 And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath Blew for a little life, and made a flame Which was a mockery; then they lifted up Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld[58] Each other's aspects--saw, and shrieked, and died-- Even of their mutual hideousness they died, Unknowing who he was upon whose brow Famine had written Fiend. The World was void, The populous and the powerful was a lump, 70 Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless-- A lump of death--a chaos of hard clay. The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still, And nothing stirred within their silent depths; Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropped They slept on the abyss without a surge-- The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave, The Moon, their mistress, had expired before; The winds were withered in the stagnant air, 80 And the clouds perished; Darkness had no need Of aid from them--She was the Universe. Diodati, _July_, 1816. [First published, _Prisoner of Chillon_, etc., 1816.] CHURCHILL'S GRAVE,[59] A FACT LITERALLY RENDERED.[60]