The City In the Sea

    In a strange city lying alone

    Far down within the dim West

    Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best

    Have gone to their eternal rest.

    There shrines² and palaces and towers

    （Time-eaten towers that tremble not！）

    Resemble nothing that is ours.

    Around by lifting winds forgot

    Resignedly beneath the sky

    The melancholy³ waters lie.

    No rays from the holy heaven come down

    On the long night-time of that town；

    But light from out the lurid⁴ sea

    Streams up the turrets⁵ silently-

    Gleams up the pinnacles⁶ far and free-

    Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls-

    Up fanes- up Babylon-like walls-

    Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers⁷

    Of sculptured ivy⁸ and stone flowers-

    Up many and many a marvellous shrine¹

    Whose wreathed friezes⁹ intertwine

    The viol the violet and the vine.

    Resignedly beneath the sky

    The melancholy waters lie.

    So blend the turrets and shadows there

    That all seem pendulous¹⁰ in air

    While from a proud tower in the town

    Death looks gigantically down.

    There open fanes and gaping¹¹ graves

    Yawn level with the luminous¹² waves；

    But not the riches there that lie

    In each idol's diamond eye-

    Not the gaily-jewelled dead

    Tempt¹³ the waters from their bed；

    For no ripples¹⁴ curl alas¹⁵！

    Along that wilderness¹⁶ of glass-

    No swellings tell that winds may be

    Upon some far-off happier sea-

    No heavings hint that winds have been

    On seas less hideously¹⁷ serene¹⁸.

    But lo a stir is in the air！

    The wave- there is a movement there！

    As if the towers had thrust aside

    In slightly sinking the dull tide-

    As if their tops had feebly given

    A void within the filmy Heaven.

    The waves have now a redder glow-

    The hours are breathing faint and low-

    And when amid no earthly moans

    Down down that town shall settle hence

    Hell rising from a thousand thrones

    Shall do it reverence¹⁹.