Darkness (poem)

"Darkness" was a poem by Lord Byron. After an encounter with the Thirteenth Doctor and the Lone Cyberman at the Villa Diodati in 1816, Byron read the poem to an audience, which included his friends and traveling companions Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, Claire Clairmont, and John Polidori. It went "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. Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea. And their masts fell down piecemeal as they dropped. They slept on the abyss without a surge. The waves were dead. The tides were in their grave. The moon, their mistress, had expired before. The winds were withered in the stagnant air and the clouds perished. Darkness had no need of aid for them. She was the universe." (TV: The Haunting of Villa Diodati).

Behind the scenes
Lord Byron recites an excerpt from poem "Darkness" in the episode The Haunting of Villa Diodati. However, the poem is not referred to by name on-screen.

The real-life excerpt is actually longer; some of the text is omitted on-screen. It reads:

"Famine had written Fiend. 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. The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still, And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths; 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 wither'd in the stagnant air, And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need Of aid from them—She was the Universe."

- Darkness