Nero

    This Rome, that was the toil of many men,
    The consummation of laborious years -
    Fulfilment's crown to visions of the dead,
    And image of the wide desire of kings -
    Is made my darkling dream's effulgency,
    Fuel of vision, brief embodiment
    Of wandering will, and wastage of the strong
    Fierce ecstacy of one tremendous hour,
    When ages piled on ages were a flame
    To all the years behind, and years to be.

    Yet any sunset were as much as this,
    Save for the music forced by hands of fire
    From out the hard strait silences which bind
    Dull Matter's tongueless mouth - a music pierced
    With the tense voice of Life, more quick to cry
    Its agony - and save that I believed
    The radiance redder for the blood of men.
    Destruction hastens and intensifies
    The process that is Beauty, manifests
    Ranges of form unknown before, and gives
    Motion and voice and hue where otherwise
    Bleak inexpressiveness had leveled all.

    If one create, there is the lengthy toil;
    The laboured years and days league tow'rd an end
    Less than the measure of desire, mayhap,
    After the sure consuming of all strength,
    And strain of faculties that otherwhere
    Were loosed upon enjoyment; and at last
    Remains to one capacity nor power
    For pleasure in the thing that he hath made.
    But on destruction hangs but little use
    Of time or faculty, but all is turned
    To the one purpose, unobstructed, pure,
    Of sensuous rapture and observant joy;
    And from the intensities of death and ruin,
    One draws a heightened and completer life,
    And both extends and vindicates himself.

    I would I were a god, with all the scope
    Of attributes that are the essential core
    Of godhead, and its visibility.
    I am but emperor, and hold awhile
    The power to hasten Death upon his way,
    And cry a halt to worn and lagging Life
    For others, but for mine own self may not
    Delay the one, nor bid the other speed.
    There have been many kings, and they are dead,
    And have no power in death save what the wind
    Confers upon their blown and brainless dust
    To vex the eyeballs of posterity.
    But were I god, I would be overlord
    Of many kings, and were as breath to guide
    Their dust of destiny. And were I god,
    Exempt from this mortality which clogs
    Perception, and clear exercise of will,
    What rapture it would be, if but to watch
    Destruction crouching at the back of Time,
    The tongueless dooms which dog the travelling suns;
    The vampire Silence at the breast of worlds,
    Fire without light that gnaws the base of things,
    And Lethe's mounting tide, that rots the stone
    Of fundamental spheres. This were enough
    Till such time as the dazzled wings of will
    Came up with power's accession, scarcely felt
    For very suddenness. Then would I urge
    The strong contention and conflicting might
    Of chaos and creation, matching them,
    Those immemorial powers inimical,
    And all their stars and gulfs subservient -
    Dynasts of Time, and anarchs of the dark -
    In closer war reverseless; and would set
    New discord at the universal core,
    A Samson-principle to bring it down
    In one magnificence of ruin. Yea,
    The monster Chaos were mine unleashed hound,
    And all my power Destruction's own right arm!

    I would exult to mark the smouldering stars
    Renew beneath my breath their elder fire,
    And feed upon themselves to nothingness.
    The might of suns, slow-paced with swinging weight
    Of myriad worlds, were made at my desire
    One long rapidity of roaring light,
    Through which the voice of Life were audible,
    And singing of the immemorial dead
    Whose dust is loosened into vaporous wings
    With soaring wrack of systems ruinous.
    And were I weary of the glare of these,
    I would tear out the eyes of light, and stand
    Above a chaos of extinguished suns,
    That crowd, and grind, and shiver thunderously,
    Lending vast voice and motion, but no ray
    To the stretched silence of the blinded gulfs.
    Thus would I give my godhead space and speech
    For its assertion, and thus pleasure it,
    Hastening the feet of Time with casts of worlds
    Like careless pebbles, or with shattered suns
    Brightening the aspect of Eternity.