A SUNSET

Westward a league the city lay, with one

Cloud's imminent umbrage o'er it: when behold,

The incendiary sun

Dropped from the womb o’ the vapour, rolled

‘ Mongst huddled towers and temples,‘ twixt them set

Infinite ardour of candescent gold,

Encompassed minaret

And terrace and marmoreal spire

With conflagration: roofs enfurnaced, yet

Unmolten,— columns and cupolas flanked with fire,

Yet standing unconsumed

Of the fierce fervency,— and higher

Than all, their fringes goldenly illumed,

Dishevelled clouds, like massed empurpled smoke

From smouldering forges fumed:

Till suddenly the bright spell broke

With the sun sinking through some palace-floor

And vanishing wholly. Then the city woke,

Her mighty Fire-Dream o'er,

As who from out a sleep is raised

Of terrible loveliness, lasting hardly more

Than one most monumental moment; dazed

He looketh, having come

Forth of one world and witless gazed

Into another: ev'n so looked, for some

Brief while, the city — amazed, immobile, dumb.