The Diary Of A Nobody
In the quiet corners of this Age, poetry still weaves its ancient magic. Here gather the whispered verses of time - some penned in distant yesterdays, others born in the dawn of our own days. Let their wisdom and wonder be a light for all who would listen.
- The Diary Of A Nobody
The Diary Of A Nobody
E22: The City in the Sea - Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe - The City in the Sea
Published: 1831
Theme:
The poem takes the reader through Death’s city. He rules this place from a throne and towers over it “gigantically”. The city is lit by nothing but the light from the sea. By following its progression a reader can see the towers, palaces, friezes, and spires that fill the city-scape. Towards the end of the poem, a change comes over the usually very still ocean. It starts to move, as does the city itself. The city sinks, slowly, down into the water, consumed by its shiny surface. This dark place is compared to a more terrible version of hell in the last lines. A place that hell would worship. (PoemAnalysis.com (2022)
Poem:
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 PoemAnalysis.com (2022)