{
 "id": "edgar-allan-poe/the-city-in-the-sea",
 "title": "The City in the Sea",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Edgar Allan Poe",
 "poet_slug": "edgar-allan-poe",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1831,
  "venue": "Poems (1831)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.eapoe.org/works/editions/poems.htm"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/edgar-allan-poe_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2151",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_Acrostic",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Elizabeth_(Poe)",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Serenade_(Poe)",
   "https://archive.org/details/worksedgarallan00unkngoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/cu31924019520810",
   "https://archive.org/details/jstor-2915307"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 53,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 53,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Lo! Death has reared himself a throne",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In a strange city lying alone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Far down within the dim West,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have gone to their eternal rest.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There shrines and palaces and towers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Resemble nothing that is ours.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Around, by lifting winds forgot,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Resignedly beneath the sky",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The melancholy waters lie.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "No rays from the holy Heaven come down",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the long night-time of that town;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But light from out the lurid sea",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Streams up the turrets silently⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gleams up the pinnacles far and free⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up domes⁠—up spires⁠—up kingly halls⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up fanes⁠—up Babylon-like walls⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up many and many a marvellous shrine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose wreathèd friezes intertwine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The viol, the violet, and the vine.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Resignedly beneath the sky",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The melancholy waters lie.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So blend the turrets and shadows there",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That all seem pendulous in air,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While from a proud tower in the town",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Death looks gigantically down.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There open fanes and gaping graves",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yawn level with the luminous waves;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But not the riches there that lie",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In each idol’s diamond eye⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not the gayly-jewelled dead",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tempt the waters from their bed;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For no ripples curl, alas!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Along that wilderness of glass⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No swellings tell that winds may be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon some far-off happier sea⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No heavings hint that winds have been",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On seas less hideously serene.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But lo, a stir is in the air!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The wave⁠—there is a movement there!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As if the towers had thrust aside,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In slightly sinking, the dull tide⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As if their tops had feebly given",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A void within the filmy Heaven.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The waves have now a redder glow⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hours are breathing faint and low⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And when, amid no earthly moans,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Down, down that town shall settle hence,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall do it reverence.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}