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Festus - I - Philip James Bailey

Lucifer.
 It is earth shall head destruction.
She shall end.
The worlds shall wonder why she comes no more
On her accustomed orbit;
and the sun miss one of his apostle lights;
the moon, an orphaned orb, shall seek for earth for aye
Through time's untrodden depths, and find her not.

No more shall morn, out of the holy east,
Stream o'er the amber air her level light;
Nor evening, with the spectral fingers,
draw her star--sprent curtain round the head of earth;
Her footsteps never thence again shall grace
Heaven's blue, sublime.

Her grave--Death's now at work--
Gaps deep in space.
See tombwards gathering all the stars, in long procession, sad, night--clad;
Each lights his funeral brand, and ranks him round.

And one by one shall all yon wandering worlds,
Whether in orbèd path they roll, or trail,
Gold--tressed, in length inestimable of light,
Their train, returnless from extreme space, cease;

The sun, bright keystone of heaven's world--built arch,
Be left in burning solitude.

The stars, as dewdrops countless on the aethereal fields
Of the skies, and all they comprehend, shall pass.
The spirits of all the spheres shall all depart
To their great destinies; and thou and I,
Greater in grief than worlds, shall live as now.

Angel of Earth. Thou knowest not the to--come.

Lucifer. Who knows? 'Tis safe,
For all that, to predict woe.
Woe impends
Always.