While the sun was going down,
There arose a fairy town.

Not the town I saw by day,
Cheerless, joyless, dull, and gray,

But a far, fantastic place,
Builded with ethereal grace,

Shimmering in a tender mist
That the slanting rays had kissed

Ere they let their latest fire
Touch with gold each slender spire.

There no men and women be:
Mermen, maidens of the sea,

Combing out their tangled locks,
Sit and sing among the rocks.

As their ruddy harps they sound,
With the seaweed twisted round,

In the shining sand below
See the city downward go!