Destruction of Pompeii

A roar, as if a myriad thunders burst,
Now hurtled o'er the heavens, and the deep earth
Shudder'd, and a thick storm of lava hail
Rush'd into air, to fall upon the world.
And low the lion cower'd, with fearful moans
And upturn'd eyes, and quivering limbs, and clutch'd
The gory sand instinctively in fear.
The very soul of silence died, and breath
Through the ten thousand pallid lips, unfelt,
Stole from the stricken bosoms; and there stood,
With face uplifted, and eyes fix'd on air,
(Which unto him was throng'd with angel forms,)
The Christian — waiting the high will of Heaven.
A wandering sound of wailing agony,
A cry of coming horror, o'er the street
Of tombs arose, and all the lurid air
Echo'd the shrieks of hopelessness and death.
"Hear ye not now?" said Pans a. Death is here!
Ye saw the 'avalanche of fire descend
Vesuvian steeps, and, in its giant strength
Sweep on to Herculaneum; and ye cried,
'It threats not us: why should we lose the sport?
Though thousands perish, why should we refrain V
Your sister city — the most beautiful —
Gasps in the burning ocean — from her domes
Fly the survivors of her people, driven
Before the torrent-floods of molten earth,
With desolation red — and o'er her grave
Unearthly voices raise the heart's last cries —
'Fly, fly! O, horror! O, my son! my sire!'.
The hoarse shouts multiply; without the mount
Are agony and death — within, such rage
Of fossil fire as man may not behold!
Hark! the destroyer slumbers not — and now,
Be your theologies but true, your Jove,
Mid all his thunders, would shrink back aghast,
Listening the horrors of the Titan's strife.
The lion trembles; will ye have my blood,
Or flee, ere Herculaneum's fate is yours?"
Vesuvius answer'd: from its pinnacles
Clouds of far-flashing cinders, lava showers,
And seas, drank up by the abyss of fire,
To be hurl'd forth in boiling cataracts,
Like midnight mountains, wrapp'd in lightnings, fell.
O, then, the love of life! the struggling rush,
The crushing conflict of escape! few, brief,
And dire the words delirious fear spake now, —
One thought, one action sway'd the tossing crowd.
All through the vomitories madly sprung,
And mass on mass of trembling beings press'd,
Gasping and goading, with the savageness
That is the child of danger, like the waves
Charybdis from his jagged rocks throws down,
Mingled in madness — warring in their wrath.
Some swoon'd, and were trod down by legion feet;
Some cried for mercy to the unanswering gods;
Some shriek'd for parted friends, forever lost;
And some, in passion's chaos, with the yells
Of desperation, did blaspheme the heavens;
And some were still in utterness of wo.
Yet all toil'd on in trembling waves of life
Along the subterranean corridors.
Moments were centuries of doubt and dread;
Each breathing obstacle a hated thing;
Each trampled wretch a footstool to o'erlook
The foremost multitudes; and terror, now,
Begat in all a maniac ruthlessness, —
For, in the madness of their agonies,
Strong men cast down the feeble, who delay 'd
Their flight; and maidens on the stones were crush'd,
And mothers madden'd when the warrior's heel
Pass'd o'er the faces of their sons! The throng
Press'd on, and in the ampler arcades now
Beheld, as floods of human life roll'd by,
The uttermost terrors of the destined hour.
In gory vapours the great sun went down;
The broad, dark sea heaved like the dying heart,
'Tween earth and heaven hovering o'er the grave.
And moan'd through all its waters; every dome
And temple, charr'd and choked with ceaseless showers
Of suffocating cinders, seem'd the home
Of the triumphant desolator, Death.
One dreadful glance sufficed, — and to the sea,
Like Lybian winds, breathing despair, they fled.
Nature's quick instinct, in most savage beasts,
Prophesies danger ere man's thought awakes,
And shrinks in fear from common savageness,
Made gentle by its terror; thus, o'erawed,
E'en in his famine's fury, by a Power
Brute beings more than human oft adore,
The lion lay, his quivering paws outspread,
His white teeth gnashing, till the crushing throngs
Had pass'd the corridors; then, glaring up,
His eyes imbued with samiel light, he saw
The crags and forests of the Apennines
Gleaming far off, and, with the exulting sense
Of home and lone dominion, at a bound
He leap'd the lofty palisades, and sprung
Along the spiral passages, with howls
Of horror, through the flying multitudes,
Flying to seek his lonely mountain-lair.
From every cell shrieks burst; hyenas cried,
Like lost child, wandering o'er the wilderness,
That, in deep loneliness, mingles its voice
With wailing winds and stunning waterfalls;
The giant elephant, with matchless strength,
Struggled against the portal of his tomb,
And groan'd and panted; and the leopard's yell,
And tiger's growl, with all surrounding cries
Of human horror mingled; and in air,
Spotting the lurid heavens and waiting prey,
The evil birds of carnage hung and watch'd,
As ravening heirs watch o'er the miser's couch.
All awful sounds of heaven and earth met now;
Darkness behind the sun-god's chariot roll'd,
Shrouding destruction, save when volcan fires
Lifted the folds, to glare on agony;
And, when a moment's terrible repose
Fell on the deep convulsions, all could hear
The toppling cliffs explode and crash below, —
While multitudinous waters from the sea
In whirlpools through the channel'd mountain rocks
Rush'd, and, with hisses like the damned's speech,
Fell in the mighty furnace of the mount.