LXXI
There his wild leaps quaint Fantoccini tries,
Chorused by laughter: here the crowd surrounds
The cowled monk, scoffing at life's vanities
To heedless ears and hearts; as louder sounds
His warning, lighter Punchinello bounds.
Zeal rears the crucifix! and, fear has knelt;
That magic spell the showman's art confounds.
Lowered his gay flag, a moment's awe is felt,
Forgot ere on the heart its passing impulse dwelt.
LXXII
The scene is changed, and far is left behind
Remembered paradise; the vine expires;
Nature in hueless languor has declined;
Hushed are the glad notes of the birds whose choirs
The spirit of a living joy inspires;
Stern silence all, for we are nearing now
The subterranean palace of the fires:
Vesuvius, lowering o'er the wastes below,
Uprears his cloven cone, with pale and wrathful brow,
LXXIII
Frowning upon us like the form of Death.
Through the dim vapours, drifted by the blast,
His shadow falls on Hades realms beneath,
Even as the Deity o'er chaos passed;
Mountainous fragments wildly round are cast;
And the hot streams of lava from his throne
In fiery waves roll scathing to the last;
Nor flower, nor plant, nor blade of grass has grown
O'er the life buried there, scorched, blasted, and unknown.
LXXIV
Stand there and gaze, where desolation, crowned,
On the rent summit throned, the eye appals;
The wild waste plain of ever-blasted ground,
The circling crater's lightning-shivered walls;
The central pit, the portal to the balls
Of everlasting fires, where, whelming o'er,
In its first rage the shower volcanic falls:
Where reeking forth from every burning pore
Convulsive earth upheaves beneath that quivering floor.
LXXV
O thou, Vesuvius! that risest there
Image of drear eternity, alone
Seated in thine own silent fields of air;
Titan! whose missals still are heavenward thrown;
The annihilating power is still thine own,
Parent of lightnings, and the tempest's shroud,
Crowning, or round thy giant shoulders thrown
In majesty of shadow, ere the cloud
Break on the nether world in fulmined wrath avowed.
LXXVI
Grave of dead cities thou! — thy heart is fire,
Thy pulse is earthquake, from thy breast are rolled
The penal flames in which shall earth expire;
Thy robes are of the lava's burning fold,
Thine armed hand the thunderbolt doth hold;
Thy Voice is as the trump that calls to doom:
Creator and destroyer! who hath told
What world of life lies buried in thy womb,
What mightiest wrecks are sunk in thy engulphing tomb?
LXXVII
Even as we onward pass, the sullen ground
Reverberates beneath the hollow tread;
There Herculaneum sleeps in trance profound!
A city rises o'er her ashes' bed,
All life, all joy, the living on the dead.
The conscious truth thrills through the heart, and swells
The bosom with its life-blood quicker sped;
Deeper than thought a feeling in us tells
Our kindred with the world beneath our feet that dwells.
LXXVIII
Spirit of Desolation! here thou art
A palpable presence bodied on the eye;
Thy sternness to the mind thou dost impart,
A wed while inspired by thy sublimity;
Thou that dost stand aloof, and draw'st a high
And thrilling grandeur from thy power impressed,
That from thy state thou mak'st a mockery
Of death and ruin; destiny confessed
Art thou, thy seat the mountain's thunder-riven breast!
There his wild leaps quaint Fantoccini tries,
Chorused by laughter: here the crowd surrounds
The cowled monk, scoffing at life's vanities
To heedless ears and hearts; as louder sounds
His warning, lighter Punchinello bounds.
Zeal rears the crucifix! and, fear has knelt;
That magic spell the showman's art confounds.
Lowered his gay flag, a moment's awe is felt,
Forgot ere on the heart its passing impulse dwelt.
LXXII
The scene is changed, and far is left behind
Remembered paradise; the vine expires;
Nature in hueless languor has declined;
Hushed are the glad notes of the birds whose choirs
The spirit of a living joy inspires;
Stern silence all, for we are nearing now
The subterranean palace of the fires:
Vesuvius, lowering o'er the wastes below,
Uprears his cloven cone, with pale and wrathful brow,
LXXIII
Frowning upon us like the form of Death.
Through the dim vapours, drifted by the blast,
His shadow falls on Hades realms beneath,
Even as the Deity o'er chaos passed;
Mountainous fragments wildly round are cast;
And the hot streams of lava from his throne
In fiery waves roll scathing to the last;
Nor flower, nor plant, nor blade of grass has grown
O'er the life buried there, scorched, blasted, and unknown.
LXXIV
Stand there and gaze, where desolation, crowned,
On the rent summit throned, the eye appals;
The wild waste plain of ever-blasted ground,
The circling crater's lightning-shivered walls;
The central pit, the portal to the balls
Of everlasting fires, where, whelming o'er,
In its first rage the shower volcanic falls:
Where reeking forth from every burning pore
Convulsive earth upheaves beneath that quivering floor.
LXXV
O thou, Vesuvius! that risest there
Image of drear eternity, alone
Seated in thine own silent fields of air;
Titan! whose missals still are heavenward thrown;
The annihilating power is still thine own,
Parent of lightnings, and the tempest's shroud,
Crowning, or round thy giant shoulders thrown
In majesty of shadow, ere the cloud
Break on the nether world in fulmined wrath avowed.
LXXVI
Grave of dead cities thou! — thy heart is fire,
Thy pulse is earthquake, from thy breast are rolled
The penal flames in which shall earth expire;
Thy robes are of the lava's burning fold,
Thine armed hand the thunderbolt doth hold;
Thy Voice is as the trump that calls to doom:
Creator and destroyer! who hath told
What world of life lies buried in thy womb,
What mightiest wrecks are sunk in thy engulphing tomb?
LXXVII
Even as we onward pass, the sullen ground
Reverberates beneath the hollow tread;
There Herculaneum sleeps in trance profound!
A city rises o'er her ashes' bed,
All life, all joy, the living on the dead.
The conscious truth thrills through the heart, and swells
The bosom with its life-blood quicker sped;
Deeper than thought a feeling in us tells
Our kindred with the world beneath our feet that dwells.
LXXVIII
Spirit of Desolation! here thou art
A palpable presence bodied on the eye;
Thy sternness to the mind thou dost impart,
A wed while inspired by thy sublimity;
Thou that dost stand aloof, and draw'st a high
And thrilling grandeur from thy power impressed,
That from thy state thou mak'st a mockery
Of death and ruin; destiny confessed
Art thou, thy seat the mountain's thunder-riven breast!