名人诗歌|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^{2 and palaces and towers}

（Time-eaten towers that tremble not！）

Re百度竞价推广ble nothing that is ours.

Around by lifting winds forgot

Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy^{3 waters lie.}

No rays from the holy heaven come down

On the long night-time of that town；

But light from out the lurid^{4 sea}

Streams up the turrets^{5 silently-}

Gleams up the pinnacles^{6 far and free-}

Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls-

Up fanes- up Babylon-like walls-

Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers⁷

Of sculptured ivy^{8 and stone flowers-}

Up many and many a marvellous shrine¹

Whose wreathed friezes^{9 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 pendulous^{10 in air}

While from a proud tower in the town

Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping^{11 graves}

Yawn level with the luminous^{12 waves；}

But not the riches there that lie

In each idol's diamond eye-

Not the gaily-jewelled dead

Tempt^{13 the waters from their bed；}

For no ripples^{14 curl alas15！}

Along that wilderness^{16 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^{17 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 reverence^19.