The silence of the city, how awful at midnight!

Mute as the battlements and crags and towers

That Fancy makes in the clouds, yea, as mute

As the moonlight that sleeps on the steady vanes.

The cell of a departed anchoret,

His skeleton and flitting ghost are there,

Sole tenants—

And all the city silent as the moon

That steeps in quiet light the steady vanes

Of her huge temples.