The Tower Of Famine.

Amid the desolation of a city,     Which was the cradle, and is now the grave     Of an extinguished people, - so that Pity     Weeps o'er the shipwrecks of Oblivion's wave,     There stands the Tower of Famine. It is built     Upon some prison-homes, whose dwellers rave     For bread, and gold, and blood: Pain, linked to Guilt,     Agitates the light flame of their hours,     Until its vital oil is spent or spilt.     There stands the pile, a tower amid the towers     And sacred domes; each marble-ribbed roof,     The brazen-gated temples, and the bowers     Of solitary wealth, - the tempest-proof     Pavilions of the dark Italian air, -     Are by its presence dimmed - they stand aloof,     And are withdrawn - so that the world is bare;     As if a spectre wrapped in shapeless terror     Amid a company of ladies fair     Should glide and glow, till it became a mirror     Of all their beauty, and their hair and hue,     The life of their sweet eyes, with all its error,     Should be absorbed, till they to marble grew.