The City in the Sea

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 scultured 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 thrown 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.

"The City in the Sea" by Edgar Allen Poe.

"The City in the Sea" by Edgar Allen Poe.

Tales

Berenice
The Black Cat
The Cask of Amontillado
The Fall of the House of Usher
The Gold-Bug
Hop-Frog
Ligeia
The Man of the Crowd
The Masque of the Red Death
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
The Pit and the Pendulum
The Purloined Letter
The Tell-Tale Heart
The Oblong Box
The Premature Burial
The Oval Portrait

Poetry

A Dream within a Dream
Annabel Lee
The Bells
The City in the Sea
The Conqueror Worm
Eldorado
The Haunted Palace
Lenore
The Raven
Ulalume