Poems of Madison Cawein Vol. 4 — The City of Darkness

THE CITY OF DARKNESS

Wide-walled it stands in heathen lands Beside a mystic sea, Its streets strange-trod of many a god And templed blasphemy.

Far through the night, with light on light, It flames beside the sea;

While overhead an unseen 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 heaves, as in sleep, With vague expectancy.

Then slowly up--as in a cup Seethes poison--swells the sea;

As through black glass, wild mass on mass, The town glows fiery.

Red-lit it glowers, like Hell's dark towers, Closed in the iron sea;

And monster forms in awful swarms Wing round it cloudily.

Still overhead the unseen dread, Whose shadow dyes the sea, At wrath-winged wait behind its gate Till God shall set it free.

An earthquake crash; a taloned flash-- And, lo!

from sky to sea A sworded Doom that stalks the gloom, Crowned with Death's agony.

And where it burned, a flame inurned, Blood-red within the sea, The phantasm of the dread above Sits in immensity.

UNDER DARK SKIES