English Adapted from “City in the Sea” by Edgar Allan Poe [1] Lo! Death has rear
ID: 466248 • Letter: E
Question
English
Adapted from “City in the Sea”
by Edgar Allan Poe
[1] Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the
best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers and tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
[2] No rays from the holy Heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently—
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free—
Up domes—up spires—up kingly halls—
Up fanes—up Babylon-like walls—
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers—
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
[3] Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.
[4] There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye—
Not the gaily-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass—
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea—
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.
[5] But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave—there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide—
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow—
The hours are breathing faint and low—
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.
Source: Public Domain, 1845
In stanza 2, Poe uses the allusion "Babylon-like walls" to
In stanza 2, Poe uses the allusion "Babylon-like walls" to
A. emphasize darkness. B. praise Babylonian shrines. C. illustrate the doomed city of death. D. recognize the power of the Babylonians.Explanation / Answer
C. illustrate the doomed city of death.
in the first paragraph, the writer mentions that "Dealth has reared himself a throne in the strange city.." This sets the context of the doomed city of death. in para (2) Poe mentions about domes, spires, kingly halls, fanes and babylon-like walls to illustrate the city.
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