Читать книгу Shapes of Clay - Ambrose Bierce - Страница 9

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I know not if it was a dream. I came

Unto a land where something seemed the same

That I had known as 't were but yesterday,

But what it was I could not rightly name.

It was a strange and melancholy land.

Silent and desolate. On either hand

Lay waters of a sea that seemed as dead,

And dead above it seemed the hills to stand,

Grayed all with age, those lonely hills—ah me,

How worn and weary they appeared to be!

Between their feet long dusty fissures clove

The plain in aimless windings to the sea.

One hill there was which, parted from the rest,

Stood where the eastern water curved a-west.

Silent and passionless it stood. I thought

I saw a scar upon its giant breast.

The sun with sullen and portentous gleam

Hung like a menace on the sea's extreme;

Nor the dead waters, nor the far, bleak bars

Of cloud were conscious of his failing beam.

It was a dismal and a dreadful sight,

That desert in its cold, uncanny light;

No soul but I alone to mark the fear

And imminence of everlasting night!

All presages and prophecies of doom

Glimmered and babbled in the ghastly gloom,

And in the midst of that accursèd scene

A wolf sat howling on a broken tomb.