 | The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield |  |
With livid clouds of ashes, lava hail,
And Volcan cinders all the air was filled;
And through the bosom of Vesuvius passed
Groans as of earth-gods in their endless death,
And giant writhings, crushing the earth's heart;
As through the tossing vapours, mingling flame
And gloom, toward the Evening Isles so loved
By ancient sage, philosopher and bard,
From the dark zenith rolled the gory sun.
Like the ailanthus tree of old Cathay,
Whose boughs, old legends say, bloom in the stars,
The deep smoke of o'erhanging ruin whirled
From the volcano's pinnacle, and flung
Its branches over nations, scattering death.
The Apennines, looking the wild wrath and awe
That clothed wood, waste and precipice, upraised
Their brows of terror and magnificence,
On their eternal thrones watching the throes
Of the convulsed abysses; from the crags
The seared and shivering forests bent and moaned,
As o'er them flew the torrid blast of fate;
And, as the molten rocks and mines began
To pour their broad deep masses from the height,
Vast trunks of sycamore and cypress stood
Charred, stark and trembling, and the castled cliffs
Burst like a myriad thunders, while the flood
Of desolation, o'er their crashing wrecks,
Tow'rd Herculaneum, gleaming horror, rolled.
And Volcan cinders all the air was filled;
And through the bosom of Vesuvius passed
Groans as of earth-gods in their endless death,
And giant writhings, crushing the earth's heart;
As through the tossing vapours, mingling flame
And gloom, toward the Evening Isles so loved
By ancient sage, philosopher and bard,
From the dark zenith rolled the gory sun.
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Whose boughs, old legends say, bloom in the stars,
The deep smoke of o'erhanging ruin whirled
From the volcano's pinnacle, and flung
Its branches over nations, scattering death.
The Apennines, looking the wild wrath and awe
That clothed wood, waste and precipice, upraised
Their brows of terror and magnificence,
On their eternal thrones watching the throes
Of the convulsed abysses; from the crags
The seared and shivering forests bent and moaned,
As o'er them flew the torrid blast of fate;
And, as the molten rocks and mines began
To pour their broad deep masses from the height,
Vast trunks of sycamore and cypress stood
Charred, stark and trembling, and the castled cliffs
Burst like a myriad thunders, while the flood
Of desolation, o'er their crashing wrecks,
Tow'rd Herculaneum, gleaming horror, rolled.
| The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield | |