The City of Dreadful Night by James Thomson
page 24 of 49 (48%)
page 24 of 49 (48%)
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all copied from the same fair form of dust:
A woman very young and very fair; 25 Beloved by bounteous life and joy and youth, And loving these sweet lovers, so that care And age and death seemed not for her in sooth: Alike as stars, all beautiful and bright, these shapes lit up that mausolean night. 30 At length I heard a murmur as of lips, And reached an open oratory hung With heaviest blackness of the whole eclipse; Beneath the dome a fuming censer swung; And one lay there upon a low white bed, 35 With tapers burning at the foot and head: The Lady of the images, supine, Deathstill, lifesweet, with folded palms she lay: And kneeling there as at a sacred shrine A young man wan and worn who seemed to pray: 40 A crucifix of dim and ghostly white Surmounted the large altar left in night:-- The chambers of the mansion of my heart, In every one whereof thine image dwells, Are black with grief eternal for thy sake. 45 The inmost oratory of my soul, Wherein thou ever dwellest quick or dead, Is black with grief eternal for thy sake. |
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