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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=416395" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Doom Of A City Part Ii: The City</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I<br>A near the dying of that royal day <br>Those amber-vested hills began to swerve; <br>And soon a lofty Pharos, gleaming white <br>Upon its isle set darkly in the light, <br>Beckoned us onward to the spacious bay <br>Encompassed broadly by their noble curve. <br>And so at length we entered it; and faced<br>The thin dark lines of countless masts, all traced <br>Upon the saddest sunset ever seen - <br> Spread out like an interminable waste <br>Of red and saffron sand, devoured by slow <br>Persistent fire; beneath whose desolate glow <br>A City lay, thick-zoned with solemn green <br>Of foliage massed upon the steeps around. <br>Between those mast-lines flamed the crystal fires <br>Of multitudinous windows; and on high <br>Grand marble palaces and temples, crowned <br>>With golden domes and radiant towers and spires, <br>Stood all entranced beneath that desert sky, <br>Based on an awful stillness. Dead or dumb, <br>That mighty City through the breathless air <br>Thrilled forth no pulse of sound, no faintest hum <br>Of congregated life in street and square: <br>Becalmed beyond all calm those galleons lay, <br>As still and lifeless as their shadows there, <br>Fixed in the magic mirror of the bay <br>As in a rose-flushed crystal weirdly fair. <br>A strange, sad dream: and like a fiery pall, <br>Blazoned with death, that sky hung over all.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>II </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Where, eastward from the town, the shore was low, <br>I drew at length my shallop up the sand,- <br>The quiet and gloomless twilight gathering slow; <br>And took my way across the lonely strand, <br>And onward to the City, lost in thought. <br>Who shall his own wild life-course understand? <br>From terror through great terrors I am brought <br>To front my fate in this mysterious land. <br>In my old common world, well fenced about <br>With myriad lives that fellowed well my own, <br>Terror and deadly anguish found me out <br>And drove me forth to seek the dread Unknown;<br>Through all whose terrors I have yet been brought, <br>Though hopeless, helpless, utterly alone. <br>May yet my long wild night be blessed with morn? <br>Some revelation from the awful Throne <br>Awaits me surely: if my life, torn free <br>From dire Egyptian bondage, has been led <br>In safety through the all-devouring sea; <br>If, lost in foodless deserts, it was fed <br>Though murmuring ever; hath it truly trod <br>Such paths for nothing? Shall it not be brought <br>To stand awe-stricken 'neath some Mount of God <br>Wrapt in thick clouds of thunder, fire and gloom, <br>And hear the Law of Heaven by which its doom <br>To good or evil must be henceforth wrought? </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>III </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The moon hung golden, large and round, <br>Soothing its beauty up the quiet sky <br>In swanlike slow pulsations, while I wound <br>Through dewy meads and gardens of rich flowers, <br>Whose fragrance like a subtle harmony <br>Was fascination to the languid hours. <br>A tender mist of light was interfused <br>Upon the hills and waters, woods and leas, <br>Throughout the gloomless gloaming: and I mused <br>Dim thoughts deep-floating in delicious dream, <br>Until the long stern lines of cypress trees,<br>Amidst whose plumes funereal there did seem<br>To creep with quivering sobs a moaning breath,<br>Awed back my heart to life - to life and death.<br>Far in the mystic moonlight lay outspread,<br>In trance of solemn beauty still and weird, <br>That Camp and City of the ancient dead;<br>And far around stood up in dense array<br>Those monumental marbles ever reared<br>By men still battling with the powers of Life<br>To those released before them from its sway:<br>Victors or vanquished in the fearful strife,<br>What matters? - ah, within our Mother's breast,<br>From toil and tumult, sin and sorrow free,<br>Sphered beyond hope and dread, divinely calm,<br>They lie, all gathered into perfect rest;<br>And o'er the trance of their Eternity<br>The cypress waves more holy than the palm.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>IV</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A funeral train was gathered round a bier: <br>The reverend priest with lifted hands and face, <br>Appealing silently to Heaven's grace <br>For this young soul called early from our sphere; <br>And white-robed maidens pale, whose hands scarce held <br>What further symbol-flowers they had to shed <br>Upon their sweet lost sister, - awe and dread <br>Numbing their noisier grief, they stood compelled <br>To meet Death's eyes which wither youth from Life; <br>And leaning sole against a tree apart, <br>As one might lean just stricken to the heart, <br>A youth, wrought calm by woe's self-slaying strife - <br>His head was sunken nerveless on his breast, <br>He stood a dumb blind statue of Despair. <br>While all yet moved not, I approached them there, <br>Murmuring: They bring this maiden to her rest <br>Beneath the pure sad moon, in thoughtful night, <br>Rather than in the garish day whose King <br>Rides through the heavens for ever triumphing <br>Throned above ruth in never-darkened light; <br>That ere the blank dawn chills them they may gaze, <br>And see her soul as some white cloud on high <br>Floating serenely up the star-strewn sky.... <br>My steps were now close near them, when amaze <br>Convulsed me with a swooning suddenness - <br>What people dwell within this Silent Land, <br>Who thus have placed, through day and night to stand, <br>This Scene complete in all its images <br>Of Life in solemn conference with Death, <br>Amidst the wide and populous solitude <br>Of Death's own realm? - a people of strange mood. <br>For all, - the maidens meek with bated breath <br>And eyes weighed down by awe and fear and sorrow, <br>The priest appealing to the heavens above, <br>The youth whose mortal night could hope no morrow, <br>The sweet young girl new-riven from his love, - <br>All save the flowers, the withered flowers alone, <br>Were carven weirdly in unconscious stone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=James+Thomson">James Thomson</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=416395" data-title="The Doom Of A City Part Ii: The City de James Thomson" data-description="I
A near the dying of that royal day 
Those amber-vested hills began to swerve; 
And soon a lofty Pharos, gleaming white 
Upon its isle set darkly in the light, 
Beckoned us onward to the spacious bay 
Encompassed broadly by their noble curve. 
An..."></div>
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