Send some poetry to a friend - the love thought that counts!
 
Poems for the People   -  Poems by the People

The House-Top
by Herman Melville

American novelist, poet and short story writer.

Best known for his novels of the sea including Moby Dick (1851). His other works include Typee (1846), Omoo (1847), White-Jacket (1850), Pierre, or the Ambiguities (1852), Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile (1855), the satirical The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (1857), four collections of verse including Timoleon (1891) and a number of sketches and short stories for magazines, some of which were collected in The Piazza Tales (1856).


The House-Top
by Herman Melville

A Night Piece
(July, 1863)

No sleep. The sultriness pervades the air
And binds the brain -a dense oppression, such
As tawny tigers feel in matted shades,
Vexing their blood and making apt for ravage.
Beneath the stars the roofy desert spreads
Vacant as Libya. All is hushed near by.
Yet fitfully from far breaks a mixed surf
Of muffled sound, the atheist roar of riot.
Yonder, where parching Sirius set in drought
Balefully glares red Arson -there -and there.
The town is taken by its rats -ship-rats
And rats of the wharves. All civil charms
And priestly spells which late held hearts in awe -
Fear-bound, subjected to a better sway
Than sway of self; these like a dream dissolve,
And man rebounds whole aeons back in nature.
Hail to the low dull rumble, dull and dead,
And ponderous drag that shakes the wall.
Wise Draco comes, deep in the midnight roll
Of black artillery; he comes, though late;
In code corroborating Calvin's creed
And cynic tyrannies of honest kings;
He comes, nor parleys; and the town, redeemed,
Gives thanks devout; nor, being thankful, heeds
The grimy slur on the Republic's faith implied,
Which holds that Man is naturally good,
And -more -is Nature's Roman, never to be scourged.


pipHome | Top | All Poems | About | FAQ | Your Privacy | Contact Us

All poetry is copyright by the individual authors.
All other material on this web site, unless otherwise noted, is
Copyright 1998-2021 by Ron Carnell and Passions in Poetry.
- netpoets 2.9.1 -