N is for Night: Zelazny A to Z

Night, Thing that Cried in the

In the days when I reigned
as Lord of Life and Death,
          says the Prince Who Was A Thousand,
in those days, at Man’s request,
did I lay the Middle Worlds within a sea of power,
tidal, turning thing,
thing to work with peaceful sea change
the birth,
growth,
death
designs upon them;

then all this gave
to Angels ministrant,
their Stations bordering Midworlds,
their hands to stir the tides.
And for many ages did we rule so,
elaborating the life,
tempering the death,
promoting the growth,
extending
the shores of that great, great sea,
as more and more of the Outworlds
were washed by the curling,
crowned by creation's foam.

Then one day,
brooding on the vast abyss
of such a world, brave,
good-seeming,
though dead, barren,
not then touched by the life,
         I roused some sleeping thing
with the kiss of the tide I rode.