Explore "The House-Top. a Night Piece. (July, 1863.)" by Herman Melville on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
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 eons back in nature.[9] / 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 parlies; and the Town redeemed, / Give 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.