The Masque of the Elements

who once rolled fiery gold through all her veins,
And soared from mountain-throats o'er hemispheres,

And throbbed in huts and palaces and fanes.
What power in me abode! what loveliness!

The three vast elements proclaimed me king,
Straight from the Sun I sank with gifts to bless

The world with living tongue and burning wing.
I came, and Man sat caverned with the brute;

I nursed him and he rose into a god;
I leave him and he withers with the fruit

Of ages on the ground his splendour trod.
Farewell, you airs and skies from whence I fell,

Fond Earth, farewell, and all thy beauty past--
And thou, old pulseless Ocean foe, farewell!--

All dead! I too shall die, though I be last.

Utter silence and utter lifelessness engulf the Globe; the frozen and adamantine bars of oblivion fall.

As the soft sibilant tones of the Fire-daemon flutter away, slowly the spheres recede and vanish in the clasp of Night.

Once more is heard,