seconds of my life are ticked by a clock whose pendulum swings
through an arc of motionless stars.

"'... Once I had a vision of Death. Methinks it must have been a
precursive vapour of the madness that afterwards infolded me, for I
know well that there is not one called Death, that he is but a word
needful to the weakness of human thought and the poverty of human
speech; that he is a no-being, and but a change from that which
is.--I had a vision of Death, I say. And it was on this wise:

"'I was walking over a wide plain of sand, like Egypt, so that ever
and anon I looked around me to see if nowhere, from the base of the
horizon, the pyramids cut their triangle out of the blue night of
heaven; but I saw none. The stars came down and sparkled on the dry
sands, and all was waste, and wide desolation. The air also was
still as the air of a walled-up tomb, where there are but dry bones,
and not even the wind of an evil vapour that rises from decay. And
through the dead air came ever the low moaning of a distant sea,
towards which my feet did bear me. I had been journeying thus for
years, and in their lapse it had grown but a little louder.--Suddenly
I was aware that I was not alone. A dim figure strode beside me,
vague, but certain of presence. And I feared him not, seeing that
which men fear the most was itself that which by me was the most
desired. So I stood and turned and would have spoken. But the shade
that seemed not a shadow, went on and regarded me not. Then I also
turned again towards the moaning of the sea and went on. And lo!
the shade which had gone before until it seemed but as a vapour
among the stars, was again by my side walking. And I said, and stood
not, but walked on: Thou shade that art not a shadow, seeing there
shineth no sun or moon, and the stars are many, and the one slayeth