Percy Shelley

The Tower of Famine

Amid the desolation of a city,
Which was the cradle, and is now the grave
Of an extinguished people,'€”so that Pity
 
Weeps o’€™er the shipwrecks of Oblivion’€™s wave,
There stands the Tower of Famine. It is built
Upon some prison-homes, whose dwellers rave
 
For bread, and gold, and blood: Pain, linked to Guilt,
Agitates the light flame of their hours,
Until its vital oil is spent or spilt.
 
There stands the pile, a tower amid the towers
And sacred domes; each marble-ribbed roof,
The brazen-gated temples, and the bowers
 
Of solitary wealth,—the tempest-proof
Pavilions of the dark Italian air,—
Are by its presence dimmed—they stand aloof,
 
And are withdrawn’€”so that the world is bare;
As if a spectre wrapped in shapeless terror
Amid a company of ladies fair
 
Should glide and glow, till it became a mirror
Of all their beauty, and their hair and hue,
The life of their sweet eyes, with all its error,
Should be absorbed, till they to marble grew.
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