The Doomed City
Lines:58Movement:Romanticism
Lo ! Death hath rear'd himself a throneIn a strange city, all alone,Far down within the dim west —And the good, and the bad, and the worst, and the best,Have gone to their eternal rest. There shrines, and palaces, and towersAre — not like any thing of ours —O ! no — O! no — ours never loomTo heaven with that ungodly gloom!Time-eaten towers that tremble not!Around, by lifting winds forgot,Resignedly beneath the skyThe melancholy waters lie. A heaven that God doth not contemnWith stars is like a diadem —We liken our ladies' eyes to them —But there ! that everlasting pall!It would be mockery to callSuch dreariness a heaven at all.Yet tho' no holy rays come downOn the long night-time of that town,Light from the lurid, deep seaStreams up the turrets silently —Up thrones — up long-forgotten bowersOf sculptur'd ivy and stone flowers —Up domes — up spires — up kingly halls —Up fanes — up Babylon-like walls —Up many a melancholy shrineWhose entablatures intertwineThe mask the — the viol — and the vine. There open temples — open gravesAre on a level with the waves —But not the riches there that lieIn each idol's diamond eye.Not the gaily-jewell'd deadTempt the waters from their bed:For no ripples curl, alas!Along that wilderness of glass — No swellings hint that winds may beUpon a far-off happier sea:So blend the turrets and shadows thereThat all seem pendulous in air,While from the high towers of the townDeath looks gigantically down.But lo! a stir is in the air!The wave! there is a ripple there!As if the towers had thrown aside,In slightly sinking, the dull tide —As if the turret-tops had givenA vacuum in the filmy heaven:The waves have now a redder glow —The very hours are breathing low —And when, amid no earthly moans,Down, down that town shall settle hence,Hell rising from a thousand thronesShall do it reverence,And Death to some more happy climeShall give his undivided time.