510 A Dream in Westminster Abbey. [Nov. 
to escape from a region, the desolation of which came over.me, as. if 
it had been the dull oblivion of death itself:, 1 hurried I wist not whither, 
or in what direction ; but, from the heaviness of the journey, I concluded 
that the space must have been considerable... Still. there. was nothing 
that I could call an object, living or dead, organic or inorganic; of this 
world or of any other—nought but, that dull vacuity, which, had.the 
gloom but wanted the concealment of darkness—which hid every thing 
save its own nothingness, and disclosed that with an effect. which the 
language of created man applied to created objects, or even the wildest 
fancy of man’s imagination, is utterly unable to depict. 
After some. time, or some space—for here time and space were 
either one and the same, or so confounded that neither of them could .be 
distinguished—a formless thing—or rather, as it at first seemed, a form 
of nothing—made its appearance. It came not to cross my path—for 
path there was none—neither was there any thing of which, or upon 
which, to forma path; but it stood or hung in the gloomy void before 
me, as filmy and oblivious as that void itself. It had an outline—but 
that outline I cannot trace; and it had a shape—but that shape. was, 
at its first appearance, so indeterminate, that I can compare it to nothing 
to which mankind have given a name. Previously, I had felt as if in 
the kingdom of death—in that dreary region where he had not merely 
extinguished life, but blotted out existence itself; and now shuddering 
came across me, as if I were to be ushered into the immediate presence 
of the direful monarch, and the icy hand of his annihilation were to be 
laid upon myself. I paused, and would have turned; but. my pause 
was not a stop—neither was my turning a possibility. 1 was borne on- 
ward; not by the motion of that upon which I stood—for I stood upon 
nought bearing the semblance of matter ; and I was not urged om by 
a current of the air, or a breeze of the wind—for air nor) wind, current 
nor breeze, could be ascribed to such a place. | Still, however, I was 
impelled onward; and the impulse came from that, viewless fate, of which 
every man feels the power, but of which no man can_ feel the working, 
or describe the lineaments. a4 
As I was thus urged, the spectre-nothing gradually assumed a more 
palpable outline ; and after a space, I could perceive: that, inyas far.as 
shadow can resemble substance—as nothing can resemble something— 
it bore the likeness of a man whose form had been bent by the. cares, 
and whose locks had been bleached by the storms of ten thousand ages. 
Hoary wings were folded behind him; his beard of snow descended to 
his girdle; the emblem of eternity was under his feet; the weapons of 
razure and desolation were around him. Near him lay a heap of crum- 
bling bones, tattered crowns, broken sceptres, and all manner of forms 
and fancies of the insignia of human greatness. . He ever and anon laid 
his withered hand on these. In his grasp they mouldered) mto powder; 
and that powder he cast, with most stoical indifference, upon the shadow 
of a black river which crept dismally at his feet, and slid, I know not how, 
into the nothingness of the surrounding space. ° 
My mind, like all that was before and surrounding me, was utterly. 
beyond description. I felt. as though in the act of being taken, into 
the hand of the phantom, crumbled into dust, and scattered, upon.the, 
shadowy and oblivious waters ; and as there lives not the man, but will 
make one last effort, how feeble and insignificant soever, to resist the 
menaces of death, and return to the joys of the green earth and the 
ay 
