Over the darkened city, the city of towers,
     The city of a thousand gates,
     Over the gleaming terraced roofs, the huddled towers,
     Over a somnolent whisper of loves and hates,
     The slow wind flows, drearily streams and falls,
     With a mournful sound down rain-dark walls.
     On one side purples the lustrous dusk of the sea,
     And dreams in white at the city's feet;
     On one side sleep the plains, with heaped-up hills.
     Oaks and beeches whisper in rings about it.
     Above the trees are towers where dread bells beat.

     The fisherman draws his streaming net from the sea
     And sails toward the far-off city, that seems
     Like one vague tower.
     The dark bow plunges to foam on blue-black waves,
     And shrill rain seethes like a ghostly music about him
     In a quiet shower.

     Rain with a shrill sings on the lapsing waves;
     Rain thrills over the roofs again;
     Like a shadow of shifting silver it crosses the city;
     The lamps in the streets are streamed with rain;
     And sparrows complain beneath deep eaves,
     And among whirled leaves
     The sea-gulls, blowing from tower to lower tower,
     From wall to remoter wall,
     Skim with the driven rain to the rising sea-sound
     And close grey wings and fall . . .

     . . . Hearing great rain above me, I now remember
     A girl who stood by the door and shut her eyes:
     Her pale cheeks glistened with rain, she stood and shivered.
     Into a forest of silver she vanished slowly . . .
     Voices about me rise . . .

     Voices clear and silvery, voices of raindrops,—
     'We struck with silver claws, we struck her down.
     We are the ghosts of the singing furies . . . '
     A chorus of elfin voices blowing about me
     Weaves to a babel of sound.  Each cries a secret.
     I run among them, reach out vain hands, and drown.

     'I am the one who stood beside you and smiled,
     Thinking your face so strangely young . . . '
     'I am the one who loved you but did not dare.'
     'I am the one you followed through crowded streets,
     The one who escaped you, the one with red-gleamed hair.'

     'I am the one you saw to-day, who fell
     Senseless before you, hearing a certain bell:
     A bell that broke great memories in my brain.'
     'I am the one who passed unnoticed before you,
     Invisible, in a cloud of secret pain.'

     'I am the one who suddenly cried, beholding
     The face of a certain man on the dazzling screen.
     They wrote me that he was dead.  It was long ago.
     I walked in the streets for a long while, hearing nothing,
     And returned to see it again.  And it was so.'