 | The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield |  |
Through deepening cinders, tossing sulphur clouds,
And victims shrieking in their agonies,
The Prætor sought his way. His harnessed steeds,
Maddened by fear, had with his chariot flown,—
The charioteer had perished 'neath the wheels:
And haughtily through all the Street of Tombs,
Among the whirlpool waves of human life,
And lighted by destruction's breath of flame,
He struggled tow'rd his palace, to the wrath
Of heaven fronting defiance, e'en while Death
Dwelt in the bosom of all elements
And the world trembled! Hastening to his home,
Of power mid Syrian splendors and a fame
Immortal as the flatterer's pander verse,
He dreamed; and bearing to the vaulted crypt,
Whose labyrinths wandered far beneath the hills,
His gold and gems, he on his household closed
The marble door, deeming their safety won,
Whose strangled death cries rose unheard—whose bones
The daily sunlight of a thousand years
Ne'er visited beneath the deeps of death.
And victims shrieking in their agonies,
The Prætor sought his way. His harnessed steeds,
Maddened by fear, had with his chariot flown,—
The charioteer had perished 'neath the wheels:
And haughtily through all the Street of Tombs,
Among the whirlpool waves of human life,
And lighted by destruction's breath of flame,
He struggled tow'rd his palace, to the wrath
Of heaven fronting defiance, e'en while Death
Dwelt in the bosom of all elements
And the world trembled! Hastening to his home,
Of power mid Syrian splendors and a fame
Immortal as the flatterer's pander verse,
He dreamed; and bearing to the vaulted crypt,
Whose labyrinths wandered far beneath the hills,
His gold and gems, he on his household closed
The marble door, deeming their safety won,
Whose strangled death cries rose unheard—whose bones
The daily sunlight of a thousand years
Ne'er visited beneath the deeps of death.
| The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield | |