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The Chandra Deep Field South: Chandra's view of monstrous, ancient black holes feasting in a field of celestial gore
Credit: CXC; E. A. Poe


The Raving

Upon a midnight clear I wondered, while I sat and pondered
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore.
When soon my wandering, glancing gaze
turned
, and I was sore amazed:
a lightless patch of field not seen before.

Deep into that darkness peering, long there staring, fearing.
When soon there came a tapping
light as rain, a gentle rapping
tapping upon my instrumental door.
An indistinct picture was slowly gathered, downlinked, further examined:
Darkness there and nothing more.

In that darkness, seemingly unbroken,
Still the stillness gave no token,
and I turned to go upstairs to bed.
But slowly the blackness did begin to shimmer,
gaping, did begin to glimmer
and a solemn dread did shake me to the core.

In that field of darkness yawning
was the birth of an ancient blackness dawning
hidden hideous beasts I now singularly saw.
Light enough, new signs of horror
Inclined I was by my own terror
To view this monstrous scene of celestial gore

For in the dark, inexorable tentacles dangled
and even the incautious stars they mangled
who wandered too close to that horrible unseen shore;
screaming as they fell below me
Hellish heat did only show me
Destruction on a scale not seen before

For sinking now below that accursed horizon
End of both space and time arising
doomed worlds swallowed whole, to be seen
Nevermore

Published: October 31, 2016


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Page Author: Dr. Michael F. Corcoran
Last modified Monday, 26-Feb-2024 17:34:54 EST