CATILINE.
Now am I free. Soon I shall cease to be.
Now sinks my soul in vague oblivion.
My eyes are growing dim, my hearing faint,
As if through rushing waters. Ah, do you know
What I have slain with this my little dagger?
Not her alone,--but all the hearts on earth,--
All living things, all things that grow and bloom;--
The starlight have I dimmed, the crescent moon,
The flaming sun. Ah, see,--it fails to rise;
’Twill never rise again; the sun is dead.
Now is the whole wide realm of earth transformed
Into a huge and clammy sepulchre,
Its vault of leaden grey;--beneath this vault
Stand you and I, bereft of light and darkness,
Of death and life,--two restless exiled shadows.
