 | The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield |  |
Waking to want from dreams of affluence,
Parting from splendour to meet toil and tears,
Then rose pale Indigence in shattered cells,
Dusky and damp and squalid, yet o'ertaxed
By the imperial rescript, to endure
The taunts of mimes, the old indignities
Of freedmen, merciless in novel power,
The insolence of taskers and the shame
Of late dismissal with their pittance, when
The proud patrician deigned to bid his slave
Cast the base drachms at the plebeian's feet!
Ere melted the wreathed mists from isle or mount,
City or lake, Pompeii's pinnacles
Ascending in uncertain grandeur yet,
The artizan went forth to build again
The fabrics earthquakes had late sported with;
Doomed, ere the dial rested shadowless,
To cease from toil forever!—and the sounds
Of early servile labour multiplied
Through glimmering arcades and noisome courts,
Thronged ever by the peasants pomp creates,
As the bright sungod o'er the mountains rose,
And his broad disk poured glory over earth.
Parting from splendour to meet toil and tears,
Then rose pale Indigence in shattered cells,
Dusky and damp and squalid, yet o'ertaxed
By the imperial rescript, to endure
The taunts of mimes, the old indignities
Of freedmen, merciless in novel power,
The insolence of taskers and the shame
Of late dismissal with their pittance, when
The proud patrician deigned to bid his slave
Cast the base drachms at the plebeian's feet!
Ere melted the wreathed mists from isle or mount,
City or lake, Pompeii's pinnacles
Ascending in uncertain grandeur yet,
The artizan went forth to build again
The fabrics earthquakes had late sported with;
Doomed, ere the dial rested shadowless,
To cease from toil forever!—and the sounds
Of early servile labour multiplied
Through glimmering arcades and noisome courts,
Thronged ever by the peasants pomp creates,
As the bright sungod o'er the mountains rose,
And his broad disk poured glory over earth.
| The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield | |