 | The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield |  |
With hurried footfalls o'er the lava walks,
Casting quick glances tow'rd the Mount of Flame,
The vassal worshippers of Isis passed,
And the proud temple gates behind them closed.
Then from the altar of the Idol came
The crowned hierophant, in robes o'erwrought
With mystic symbols, emblems of a power
Invisible, yet everywhere supreme,
As the air that shrouds the glaciers, and, like that,
Waked to annihilate, by one low voice.
Lifting his dusky hand, gleaming with gems,
He waved the throng to worship, with hushed lips,
And, with a gesture, bidding neophytes
Come forth, and raise the victim, bound and stretched
On the Mosaic floor, in horror's arms,
With a hyæna's step, through pillar'd aisles,
Dim, still and awful, to the vaulted crypt
Of gloom and most unhallowed sacrifice
He led the bearers of the victim maid.
One shuddering farewell—one wild shriek gushed,
And then in gloom her hyacinthine hair
Vanished—and from the veiled recesses rose
The music of the sistrum, and strange gleams
Of violet and crimson light along
The shrine and statues flitted momently
And faded; and mysterious phantoms glanced
O'er the far skirting corridors, and left
The awed mind wildered with a doubting sense
Of silence broken by what was not sound,
Nor breathings of a living heart—nor tones
Of forest leaves nor lapses of the wind—
But a dread haunting of a sightless fear
Of unformed peril—a crushed thought, that through
The twilight dimness of the fane o'erhung
Gigantic beings of diluvian realms,
Voiceless and viewless, yet endowed with might
To rend the mortal breather of a sigh.
Down the chill, dusky granite steps the priest
Guided the virgin sacrifice; above,
The massy and barr'd vault door shut; and Night,
Shown in its ghastly terrors by wild rays
Of many tinctured lights, fell on the heart
Of the devoted, desolated maid.
Through still descending labyrinths, where coiled
All loathsome creatures, and dark waters dripped
With a deep, sullen sound like pulses heard
By captives dying in their dungeon tomb,
The Egyptian glided hurriedly and still.
Then o'er a green lagoon, whose festered flood
Flung back a deathsome glare as the lights sunk
On its dead surface, stretching into gloom,
They, in a mouldered barque, went silently.
The plated crocodile, on the earth and pool
Suspended, yawn'd his sluggish jaws and looked
Upon the priest with fawning earnestness;
He gazed upon the victim and passed by
And the loathed reptile dreamed of coming feasts.
Rugged and spiral grew the pathway; bats,
Waving the spectre lights, winged through the vaults,
Startled yet welcoming; and serpents lanced
Their quivering tongues of venom forth and hissed
Their salutations; and the lizards crept
Along the cold, wet ridges of the caves;
And oft the maiden's agonizing eyes
Beheld in niches or sarcophagi
Mortality's abhorred resemblances,
With folded serpents sculptured overhead;
And oft the feet of the familiars struck
Strewn relics of the victims offered here!
Casting quick glances tow'rd the Mount of Flame,
The vassal worshippers of Isis passed,
And the proud temple gates behind them closed.
Then from the altar of the Idol came
The crowned hierophant, in robes o'erwrought
With mystic symbols, emblems of a power
Invisible, yet everywhere supreme,
As the air that shrouds the glaciers, and, like that,
Waked to annihilate, by one low voice.
Lifting his dusky hand, gleaming with gems,
He waved the throng to worship, with hushed lips,
And, with a gesture, bidding neophytes
Come forth, and raise the victim, bound and stretched
On the Mosaic floor, in horror's arms,
With a hyæna's step, through pillar'd aisles,
Dim, still and awful, to the vaulted crypt
Of gloom and most unhallowed sacrifice
He led the bearers of the victim maid.
One shuddering farewell—one wild shriek gushed,
And then in gloom her hyacinthine hair
Vanished—and from the veiled recesses rose
The music of the sistrum, and strange gleams
Of violet and crimson light along
The shrine and statues flitted momently
And faded; and mysterious phantoms glanced
O'er the far skirting corridors, and left
The awed mind wildered with a doubting sense
Of silence broken by what was not sound,
Nor breathings of a living heart—nor tones
Of forest leaves nor lapses of the wind—
But a dread haunting of a sightless fear
103
The twilight dimness of the fane o'erhung
Gigantic beings of diluvian realms,
Voiceless and viewless, yet endowed with might
To rend the mortal breather of a sigh.
Down the chill, dusky granite steps the priest
Guided the virgin sacrifice; above,
The massy and barr'd vault door shut; and Night,
Shown in its ghastly terrors by wild rays
Of many tinctured lights, fell on the heart
Of the devoted, desolated maid.
Through still descending labyrinths, where coiled
All loathsome creatures, and dark waters dripped
With a deep, sullen sound like pulses heard
By captives dying in their dungeon tomb,
The Egyptian glided hurriedly and still.
Then o'er a green lagoon, whose festered flood
Flung back a deathsome glare as the lights sunk
On its dead surface, stretching into gloom,
They, in a mouldered barque, went silently.
The plated crocodile, on the earth and pool
Suspended, yawn'd his sluggish jaws and looked
Upon the priest with fawning earnestness;
He gazed upon the victim and passed by
And the loathed reptile dreamed of coming feasts.
Rugged and spiral grew the pathway; bats,
Waving the spectre lights, winged through the vaults,
Startled yet welcoming; and serpents lanced
Their quivering tongues of venom forth and hissed
Their salutations; and the lizards crept
Along the cold, wet ridges of the caves;
And oft the maiden's agonizing eyes
Beheld in niches or sarcophagi
Mortality's abhorred resemblances,
With folded serpents sculptured overhead;
And oft the feet of the familiars struck
Strewn relics of the victims offered here!
The streets of Pompeii were paved with blocks of lava; and the audacious apathy, which the inhabitants manifested amidst the threatenings of Vesuvius, may be ascribed to their familiarity with earthquakes and volcanoes. The wretched inhabitants of Portici, Torre del Greco and other exposed villages are, at this day, as unapprehensive of the peril that has overhung them since their birth, as were the Pompeiians at their death-hour. Cities buried in lava or ashes may lie beneath even Herculaneum and Pompeii.
| The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield | |