BYRON: (reading) The world was void,

The populous and the powerful was a lump,

Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless –

A lump of death – a chaos of hard clay.

(Two lines missing.)

BYRON: Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,

And their masts fell down piecemeal as they dropp’d

They slept on the abyss without a surge –

The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,

The moon their mistress had expir’d before;

The winds were withered in the stagnant air,

And the clouds perish’d; Darkness had no need

Of aid from them – She was the universe.