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)