|
Lo! Death has reared himself a throne |
|
In a strange city lying alone |
|
Lo! a strange town, lying alone |
|
Death has reared himself a throne |
|
Far down in the west |
|
Where the good, bad, worst, and the best have gone to their eternal rest |
|
There, shrines and towers: |
|
Death has reared himself a throne |
|
Time-eaten towers that tremble not |
|
resemble nothing, nothing that is ours |
|
Down, down in that town, shall settle hence: |
|
Hell rising from its throne, no earthly moans, |
|
Shall do it reverence. |
|
No rays from heaven coming 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 -- |
|
No swellings tell that winds may be |
|
Upon some far-off happy seas |
|
No heavings hint that winds may be |
|
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, |
|
Acquiescently beneath the sky |
|
The melancholy waters lie |
|
The waves now have a redder glow |
|
The hours are breathing faint and low |
|
And when, amid no earthly moans |
|
Down, down in that town, shall settle hence, |
|
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones. |
|
Shall do it reverence. |
|
Down, down in that town shall settle hence, |
|
Hell, rising from its throne, no earthly moans, |
|
Shall do it reverence. |
|
There are 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 |
|
So blend the turrets, shadows there |
|
That all seem pendulous in air |
|
While from a tower in the town |
|
Death looks down |
|
But lo, a stir is in the air! |
|
The waves have now a redder glow |
|
The hours are breathing faint and low |
|
And when amid no earthly moans, |
|
Down, down in that town, shall settle hence: |
|
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones, |
|
Shall do it reverence. |
|
Far down within the dim west |
|
Where the good and the bad and |
|
The worst and the best |
|
Have gone to their eternal rest. |
|
Waves have now |
|
A red glow |
|
Hours breathe low |
|
No men moan |
|
[lyrics were adapted from the poem 'The City In the Sea' by Edgar Allan Poe] |