And I saw, and beheld a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow;
and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to
conquer.
_Revelations_, vi. 2.
In nightly vision, on my bed, I saw
A form unearthly, on a pale horse sat,
Riding triumphant o’er a prostrate world.
Around his brows he wore a crown of gold,
And in his bony hand he grasp’d a bow,
Which scatter’d arrows of destruction round.
His form was meagre--shadowy--indistinct--
Clothed with the faint lineaments of man.
He pass’d me swifter than the winged wind--
Or lightning from the cloud--or ghostly vision.
From his eye he shot devouring lightnings,
And his dilated nostril pour’d a stream
Of noisome, pestilential vapour.
Where’er he trod all vegetation ceas’d,
And the spring flow’rs hung, with’ring, on their stalks.
He passed by a city, whose huge walls,
And towers, and battlements, and palaces,
Cover’d the plain, aspiring to the skies:
As he pass’d, he smil’d--and straight it fell--
Wall, tower, and battlement, and glittering spire,
Palace, and prison, crumbling into dust;
And nought of this fair city did remain,
But one large heap of wild, confused ruin.
The rivers ceas’d to flow, and stood congeal’d.
The sea did cease its roaring, and its waves
Lay still upon the shore----
No tide did ebb or flow, but all was bound
In a calm, leaden slumber. The proud ships,
Which hitherto had travers’d o’er the deep,
Were now becalmed with this dead’ning stillness:--
The sails hung motionless--straight sunk the mast
O’er the huge bulwarks, and the yielding planks
Dropt silently into the noiseless deep:--
No ripple on the wave was left to show
Where, erst, the ship had stood, but all was blank
And motionless.
Birds in the air, upon the joyous wing,
Fell, lifeless, as the shadowy monster pass’d
And hostile armies, drawn in warlike lines,
Ceas’d their tumultuous conflict in his sight--
Conqueror and conquer’d yielding ’neath the power
Of the unknown destroyer! Nations fell;
And thrones, and principalities and powers.--
Kings with their glitt’ring crowns, lay on the earth,
And at their sides, their menials.----
Beauty and beggary together lay;
Youth, innocence, and age, and crime, together.
I saw a murderer, in a darksome wood,
Wielding a dagger o’er a beauteous bosom,
Threat’ning quick destruction to his victim:--
The shadow pass’d--the leaves grew sere and dropp’d--
The forest crumbled into ashes, and
The steel dissolv’d within th’ assassin’s hand--
His face grew wan and bloodless--his eyes stood
Fix’d, and glazed--he stiffen’d, and he fell--
And o’er his prostrate body sunk his victim!
I still pursued the conqueror with my eye--
The earth grew desart as he rode along--
The sun turn’d bloody in the stagnant air--
The universe itself was one vast ruin----
Then, stopp’d the Fiend. By him all mortal things
Had been destroyed; yet was he unsated;
And his vengeful eyes still flash’d destruction.--
Thus, alone, he stood; and reign’d--sole monarch--
All supreme--THE KING OF DESOLATION!