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And are withdrawn--so that the world is bare; As if a spectre wrapped in shapeless terror Amid a company of ladies fair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.