1. ۱Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
2. ۲In a strange city lying alone
3. ۳Far down within the dim West,
4. ۴Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
5. ۵Have gone to their eternal rest.
6. ۶There shrines and palaces and towers
7. ۷(Time-eaten towers and tremble not!)
8. ۸Resemble nothing that is ours.
9. ۹Around, by lifting winds forgot,
10. ۱۰Resignedly beneath the sky
11. ۱۱The melancholy waters lie.
12. ۱۲
13. ۱۳No rays from the holy Heaven come down
14. ۱۴On the long night-time of that town;
15. ۱۵But light from out the lurid sea
16. ۱۶Streams up the turrets silently--
17. ۱۷Gleams up the pinnacles far and free--
18. ۱۸Up domes--up spires--up kingly halls--
19. ۱۹Up fanes--up Babylon-like walls--
20. ۲۰Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
21. ۲۱Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers--
22. ۲۲Up many and many a marvellous shrine
23. ۲۳Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
24. ۲۴The viol, the violet, and the vine.
25. ۲۵
26. ۲۶Resignedly beneath the sky
27. ۲۷The melancholy waters lie.
28. ۲۸So blend the turrets and shadows there
29. ۲۹That all seem pendulous in air,
30. ۳۰While from a proud tower in the town
31. ۳۱Death looks gigantically down.
32. ۳۲
33. ۳۳There open fanes and gaping graves
34. ۳۴Yawn level with the luminous waves;
35. ۳۵But not the riches there that lie
36. ۳۶In each idol's diamond eye--
37. ۳۷Not the gaily-jewelled dead
38. ۳۸Tempt the waters from their bed;
39. ۳۹For no ripples curl, alas!
40. ۴۰Along that wilderness of glass--
41. ۴۱No swellings tell that winds may be
42. ۴۲Upon some far-off happier sea--
43. ۴۳No heavings hint that winds have been
44. ۴۴On seas less hideously serene.
45. ۴۵
46. ۴۶But lo, a stir is in the air!
47. ۴۷The wave--there is a movement there!
48. ۴۸As if the towers had thrust aside,
49. ۴۹In slightly sinking, the dull tide--
50. ۵۰As if their tops had feebly given
51. ۵۱A void within the filmy Heaven.
52. ۵۲The waves have now a redder glow--
53. ۵۳The hours are breathing faint and low--
54. ۵۴And when, amid no earthly moans,
55. ۵۵Down, down that town shall settle hence,
56. ۵۶Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
57. ۵۷Shall do it reverence.