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 lie Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie So blend the turrets and shadows there So blend the turrets and shadows there That all seem That all seem Pendulous in air While from a proud tower In the town Death 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 idols 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 faroff happier sea No heavings hint that winds have been On seas, less hideously serene But lo! a stir is in the air A 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 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 Reverence
resignedly, turret, tower, redder, fanes