Edgar Allan Poe

 

THE POETRY OF EDGAR ALLAN POE

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 he.

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 lie.
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.

 

 

 

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Edgar Allan Poe

LISTED ALPHABETICALLY

A

Al Aaraaf
Alone
Annabel Lee

B

The Bells
Bridal Ballad

C

The City in the Sea
The Coliseum
"The Conqueror Worm" (From Ligeia)

D

A Dream
Dreamland
Dreams
Dream Within a Dream

E

Eldorado
Elizabeth
An Enigma
Eulalie
Evening Star

F

Fairyland
For Annie

H

"The Happiest Day"
The Haunted Palace
Hymn
Hymn to Aristogeiton and Harmodius

I

Imitation
"In Youth I Have Known One"
Israfel
"In the Greenest of Our Valleys"(From The Fall of the House of Usher)

L

The Lake
Lenore

R

The Raven
Romance

S

"Sancta Maria!"(From Morella)
Serenade
Silence
The Sleeper
Sonnet - To Science
Song
Spirits of the Dead
Stanzas

T

Tamerlane
To ...
To ...
To F...
F...s. S. O...d
To M...
To Marie Louise (Shew)
To M. L. S.
To my Mother
To Helen
To Helen
To One Departed
To One in Paradise
To the River
To Zante

U

Ulalume

V

A Valentine
The Valley of Unrest