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[ti:The City in the Sea] |
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[ar:Sopor Æternus & the Ensemble of Shadows] |
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[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. |
