[ti:The City in the Sea]
[ar:Sopor Æternus & the Ensemble of Shadows]
[al:Poetica]
[01:06.180 ]Lo! death has reared himself throne
[02:56].180Gleams up the pinnacles far and free
[01:16.180]In a strange city lying alone
[01:26.180]Far down within the dim west
[01:34.180]Where the good and the bad
[01:35.180]And the worst and the best
[01:37.180]Have gone to their eternal rest.
[01:49.180]There shrines and palaces and towers
[01:58.180]Time-eaten towers that tremble not
[02:07.180]Resemble nothing that is ours
[02:12.180]Around, by lifting winds forgot
[02:17.180]Resignedly beneath the sky
[02:22.180]The melancholy waters lie.
[02:27.180]No rays from the holy heaven come down
[02:37.180]On the long night-time of that town
[02:46.180]But light from out the lurid sea
[02:51.180]Streams up the turrets silently
[03:11.180]Up domes, up spires, up kingly halls
[03:21.180]Up fanes, up Babylon, like walls
[03:30.180]Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
[03:39.180]Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers.
[03:50.180]Up many and many a marvellous shrine
[03:56.180]Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
[04:02.180]The viol, the violet and the vine
[04:08.180]Resignedly beneath the sky
[04:12.180]The melancholy waters lie
[04:16.180]Resignedly beneath the sky
[04:22.180]The melancholy waters lie
[04:27.180]So blend the turrets and shadows there
[04:37.180]That all seem pendulous in air
[04:45.180]While from a proud tower in the town
[04:56.180]Death looks gigantically down.
[05:16.180]There open fanes and gaping graves
[05:26.180]Yawn level with luminous waves
[05:35.180]But not the riches there that lie
[05:45.180]In each idol's diamond eye
[05:54.180]Not the gaily-jewelled dead
[06:03.180]Tempt the waters from their bed
[06:14.180]For no ripples curl, alas!
[06:23.180]Along that wilderness of glass
[06:32.180]No swellings tell that winds may be
[06:42.180]Upon some far-off happier sea
[06:51.180]No heavings hint winds have been
[07:01.180]On seas less hideously serene.
[07:28.180]But lo! a stir in the air
[07:37.180]The wave, there is a movement there
[07:48.180]As if towers had thrust aside
[07:57.180]In slightly sinking the dull tide
[08:07.180]As if their tops had feebly given
[08:15.180]A void within the filmy heaven.
[08:23.180]The waves have now a redder glow
[08:29.180]The hours are breathing faint and low
[08:34.180]And when, amid no earthly moans
[08:40.180]Down, down that town shall settle hence
[08:46.180]Hell, rising from a thousand thrones
[08:50.180]Shall do it reverence.