The City Of Darkness

Wide-walled it stands in heathen lands Beside a mystic sea, With streets strange-trod of many a god, And templed blasphemy. Far in the night, a rose of light It shines beside the sea; But overhead an unknown dread Impends eternally. There is a sound above, around Of music by the sea; And weird and wide the torches glide Of pagan revelry. There is a noise as of a voice That calls beneath the sea; And all the deep grows pale with sleep And vague expectancy. Then slowly up - as from a cup Seethes poison - lifts the sea; Wild mass on mass, as in black glass, The town glows fiery. Red-lit it glowers like Hell's dark towers Set in the iron sea; And monster swarms with awful forms Roll though it cloudily. Still overhead the unknown dread, Whose shadow dyes the sea, At wrath-winged wait behind its gate Till God shall set it free. A taloned flash, an earthquake crash, And, lo! upon the sea, Black wall on wall, a giant pall, Night settles hideously. And where it burned, a rose inurned, Red in the vasty sea, The phantasm of the dread above Sits in immensity.