The Land of the Dead

 
By demons held, there are towers
O’er the eternal-wilting flowers,
Where ne’er the sun shall shine
In a city, hideously divine

Where the ghosts of gardens have bloomed
For we, the lovers entombed.
We walk now within our rest,
Among the damned and the blessed.

A mist befalls from iron mountains,
Sweeping cold within the air,
Freezing the waters of the fountains
In the vacant city square.

Serene roll the grey, cold seas,
Whose perfumed thunder encloses,
In the ruin of a deathly breeze,
The graves of the blossomless roses.

O’er meadows, withered and dry,
Sing the birds that long to be free
In the cage of prayers that is the sky
With stars the dead alone can see.

Hills of white lay guestless—
Barrows without grasses or crown,
And they who view them shiver, restless,
While the mist rolls awfully down.

And we, the fallen sons of night,
Are the demons, or the angels void of flight
But in the shrines of the lovers self-slain
Our hearts, though still, may love again

Until seas, and roses, and fountain and hill,
Until towers, and skies and wilted flower bed,
Like the grave above us, grow silent and still,
And we, the lovers, with death, are dead.

© 2021 Marten Hoyle