The City In The Sea
Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
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 shrines 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 melancholy waters lie.
No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently-
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free-
Up domes-up spires-up kingly halls-
Up fanes-up Babylon-like walls-
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers-
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.
There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol’s diamond eye-
Not the gaily-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness 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 hideously serene.
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 reverence.
Related poetry:
- The House Of Dust: Part 01: 08: The white fog creeps from the cold sea over the city The white fog creeps from the cold sea over the city, Over the pale grey tumbled towers,- And settles among the roofs, the pale grey walls. Along damp sinuous streets it crawls, Curls like a dream among the motionless trees And seems to freeze. The fog slips ghostlike into a thousand rooms, Whirls over sleeping […]...
- The Soul of the City Receives the Gift of the Holy Spirit A BROADSIDE DISTRIBUTED IN SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS Censers are swinging, Over the town; Censers are swinging, Look overhead! Censers are swinging, Heaven comes down. City, dead city, Awake from the dead! Censers, tremendous, Gleam overhead. Wind-harps are ringing, Wind-harps unseen- Calling and calling:- “Wake from the dead. Rise, little city, Shine like a queen.” Soldiers of […]...
- The House Of Dust: Part 01: 06: Over the darkened city, the city of towers Over the darkened city, the city of towers, The city of a thousand gates, Over the gleaming terraced roofs, the huddled towers, Over a somnolent whisper of loves and hates, The slow wind flows, drearily streams and falls, With a mournful sound down rain-dark walls. On one side purples the lustrous dusk of the sea, […]...
- Hymn of the City Not in the solitude Alone may man commune with heaven, or see Only in savage wood And sunny vale, the present Deity; Or only hear his voice Where the winds whisper and the waves rejoice. Even here do I behold Thy steps, Almighty! here, amidst the crowd, Through the great city rolled, With everlasting murmur […]...
- The White City I will not toy with it nor bend an inch. Deep in the secret chambers of my heart I muse my life-long hate, and without flinch I bear it nobly as I live my part. My being would be a skeleton, a shell, If this dark Passion that fills my every mood, And makes my […]...
- VIEW FROM THE INNER CITY Leeds this silent solemn Sunday Tempest Road is clear of all But wistful birds, parked cars And vagrant trees. The surgery and pharmacy are shuttered tight “Get your medication straight into your bag”, The friendly GP gravely warned, “The junks Lay in wait to grab and run from those no longer young The building site’s […]...
- The City Revisited The grey gulls drift across the bay Softly and still as flakes of snow Against the thinning fog. All day I sat and watched them come and go; And now at last the sun was set, Filling the waves with colored fire Till each seemed like a jewelled spire Thrust up from some drowned city. […]...
- A City's Death By Fire After that hot gospeller has levelled all but the churched sky, I wrote the tale by tallow of a city’s death by fire; Under a candle’s eye, that smoked in tears, I Wanted to tell, in more than wax, of faiths that were snapped like wire. All day I walked abroad among the rubbled tales, […]...
- The City of Sleep “The Brushwood Boy” The Day’s Work Over the edge of the purple down, Where the single lamplight gleams, Know ye the road to the Merciful Town That is hard by the Sea of Dreams Where the poor may lay their wrongs away, And the sick may forget to weep? But we pity us! Oh, pity […]...
- Sea Sunset A gallant city has been builded far In the pied heaven, Bannered with crimson, sentinelled by star Of crystal even; Around a harbor of the twilight glowing, With jubilant waves about its gateways flowing A city of the Land of Lost Delight, On seas enchanted, Presently to be lost in mist moon-white And music-haunted; Given […]...
- MUSIC MUSIC doth uplift me like a sea Towards my planet pale, Then through dark fogs or heaven’s infinity I lift my wandering sail. With breast advanced, drinking the winds that flee, And through the cordage wail, I mount the hurrying waves night hides from me Beneath her sombre veil. I feel the tremblings of all […]...
- The City of Dreadful Thirst The stranger came from Narromine and made his little joke “They say we folks in Narromine are narrow-minded folk. But all the smartest men down here are puzzled to define A kind of new phenomenon that came to Narromine. “Last summer up in Narromine ’twas gettin’ rather warm Two hundred in the water bag, and […]...
- Sonnet: O City, City To live between terms, to live where death Has his loud picture in the subway ride, Being amid six million souls, their breath An empty song suppressed on every side, Where the sliding auto’s catastrophe Is a gust past the curb, where numb and high The office building rises to its tyranny, Is our anguished […]...
- All Day I Hear the Noise of Waters All day I hear the noise of waters Making moan, Sad as the sea-bird is when, going Forth alone, He hears the winds cry to the water’s Monotone. The grey winds, the cold winds are blowing Where I go. I hear the noise of many waters Far below. All day, all night, I hear them […]...
- Away, Melancholy Away, melancholy, Away with it, let it go. Are not the trees green, The earth as green? Does not the wind blow, Fire leap and the rivers flow? Away melancholy. The ant is busy He carrieth his meat, All things hurry To be eaten or eat. Away, melancholy. Man, too, hurries, Eats, couples, buries, He […]...
- The City WHAT domination of what darkness dies this hour, And through what new, rejoicing, winged, ethereal power O’erthrown, the cells opened, the heart released from fear? Gay twilight and grave twilight pass. The stars appear O’er the prodigious, smouldering, dusky, city flare. The hanging gardens of Babylon were not more fair Than these blue flickering glades, […]...
- The unquiet city we are succulents Our cool jade arms open Over clean tables our fine bone China minds pull the strings Of our tongues together we plait Our thoughts with the television Back through the aerials and Transmission towers prodding Through the literal fog The mechanics of which distance Does not startle us or the ears Pretend […]...
- When Dawn Comes to the City The tired cars go grumbling by, The moaning, groaning cars, And the old milk carts go rumbling by Under the same dull stars. Out of the tenements, cold as stone, Dark figures start for work; I watch them sadly shuffle on, ‘Tis dawn, dawn in New York. But I would be on the island of […]...
- The Alchemist in the City My window shews the travelling clouds, Leaves spent, new seasons, alter’d sky, The making and the melting crowds: The whole world passes; I stand by. They do not waste their meted hours, But men and masters plan and build: I see the crowning of their towers, And happy promises fulfill’d. And I – perhaps if […]...
- It Is the Hour It is the hour when from the boughs The nightingale’s high note is heard; It is the hour when lover’s vows Seem sweet in every whisper’d word; And gentle winds and waters near, Make music to the lonely ear. Each flower the dews have lightly wet, And in the sky the stars are met, And […]...
- At Burgos Miraculous silver-work in stone Against the blue miraculous skies, The belfry towers and turrets rise Out of the arches that enthrone That airy wonder of the skies. Softly against the burning sun The great cathedral spreads its wings; High up, the lyric belfry sings. Behold Ascension Day begun Under the shadow of those wings!...
- The Angel and the Clown I saw wild domes and bowers And smoking incense towers And mad exotic flowers In Illinois. Where ragged ditches ran Now springs of Heaven began Celestial drink for man In Illinois. There stood beside the town Beneath its incense-crown An angel and a clown In Illinois. He was as Clowns are: She was snow and […]...
- Night In The City The sluggish clouds hang low upon the town, And from yon lamp in chilled and sodden rays The feeble light gropes through the heavy mist And dies, extinguished in the stagnant maze. From moisty eaves the drops fall slowly down To strike with leaden sound the walk below, And in dark, murky pools upon the […]...
- Danger With what a childish and short-sighted sense Fear seeks for safety; recons up the days Of danger and escape, the hours and ways Of death; it breathless flies the pestilence; It walls itself in towers of defence; By land, by sea, against the storm it lays Down barriers; then, comforted, it says: “This spot, this […]...
- Destiny LIKE winds or waters were her ways: The flowing tides, the airy streams, Are troubled not by any dreams; They know the circle of their days. Like winds or waters were her ways: They heed not immemorial cries; They move to their high destinies Beyond the little voice that prays. She passed into her secret […]...
- City That Does Not Sleep In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody. Nobody is asleep. The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins. The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream, And the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the street corner The unbelievable alligator […]...
- The City That Will Not Repent Climbing the heights of Berkeley Nightly I watch the West. There lies new San Francisco, Sea-maid in purple dressed, Wearing a dancer’s girdle All to inflame desire: Scorning her days of sackcloth, Scorning her cleansing fire. See, like a burning city Sets now the red sun’s dome. See, mystic firebrands sparkle There on each store […]...
- Holy Thursday (Innocence) Twas on a Holy Thursday their innocent faces clean The children walking two & two in red & blue & green Grey headed beadles walked before with wands as white as snow Till into the high dome of Pauls they like Thames waters flow O what a multitude they seemed these flowers of London town […]...
- A Brook in the City The firm house lingers, though averse to square With the new city street it has to wear A number in. But what about the brook That held the house as in an elbow-crook? I ask as one who knew the brook, its strength And impulse, having dipped a finger length And made it leap my […]...
- Sonnet XLII: Oh! Canst Thou Bear Oh! can’st thou bear to see this faded frame, Deform’d and mangled by the rocky deep? Wilt thou remember, and forbear to weep, My fatal fondness, and my peerless fame? Soon o’er this heart, now warm with passion’s flame, The howling winds and foamy waves shall sweep; Those eyes be ever clos’d in death’s cold […]...
- To the City of London London, thou art of town{.e}s A per se. Soveraign of cities, semeliest in sight, Of high renoun, riches, and royaltie; Of lordis, barons, and many goodly knyght; Of most delectable lusty ladies bright; Of famous prelatis in habitis clericall; Of merchauntis full of substaunce and myght: London, thou art the flour of Cities all. Gladdith […]...
- Asia: From Prometheus Unbound My soul is an enchanted boat, Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing; And thine doth like an angel sit Beside a helm conducting it, Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing. It seems to float ever, for ever, Upon that many-winding river, Between mountains, woods, […]...
- His Dream Of The Skyland The seafarers tell of the Eastern Isle of Bliss, It is lost in a wilderness of misty sea waves. But the Sky-land of the south, the Yueh-landers say, May be seen through cracks of the glimmering cloud. This land of the sky stretches across the leagues of heaven; It rises above the Five Mountains and […]...
- Ye Mariners of England 1 Ye Mariners of England 2 That guard our native seas, 3 Whose flag has braved, a thousand years, 4 The battle and the breeze 5 Your glorious standard launch again 6 To match another foe! 7 And sweep through the deep, 8 While the stormy winds do blow, 9 While the battle rages loud […]...
- Up At A Villa – Down In The City (As Distinguished by an Italian Person of Quality) I Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare, The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square; Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there! II Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, […]...
- To One Who Has Been Long In City Pent To one who has been long in city pent, ‘Tis very sweet to look into the fair And open face of heaven, to breathe a prayer Full in the smile of the blue firmament. Who is more happy, when, with heart’s content, Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair Of wavy grass, and reads a […]...
- Journey's End In western lands beneath the Sun The flowers may rise in Spring, The trees may bud, the waters run, The merry finches sing. Or there maybe ’tis cloudless night, And swaying branches bear The Elven-stars as jewels white Amid their branching hair. Though here at journey’s end I lie In darkness buried deep, Beyond all […]...
- City Visions I As the blind Milton’s memory of light, The deaf Beethoven’s phantasy of tone, Wroght joys for them surpassing all things known In our restricted sphere of sound and sight, So while the glaring streets of brick and stone Vix with heat, noise, and dust from morn till night, I will give rein to Fancy, […]...
- The Burning of the Steamer City of Montreal A sad tale of the sea I will relate, which will your hearts appal Concerning the burning of the steamship “City of Montreal,” Which had on board two hundred and forty-nine souls in all, But, alas! a fearful catastrophe did them befall. The steamer left New York on the 6th August with a general cargo, […]...
- Past Days I. Dead and gone, the days we had together, Shadow-stricken all the lights that shone Round them, flown as flies the blown foam’s feather, Dead and gone. Where we went, we twain, in time foregone, Forth by land and sea, and cared not whether, If I go again, I go alone. Bound am I with […]...