Or be his bark at Posillippo laid,
While as the swarthy boatman at his side
Chants Tasso’s lays to Virgil’s
pleased shade,
Ever he sees, throughout that circuit
wide,
From shaded nook or sunny lawn espied,
From rocky headland viewed, or flow’ry
shore,
From sea, and spreading mead alike descried,
The Giant Mount, tow’ring
all objects o’er,
And black’ning with its breath th’ horizon
evermore!
Fraser’s Magazine
("Quand longtemps a gronde la bouche du Vesuve.")
[I. vii.]
When huge Vesuvius in its torment long,
Threatening has growled its cavernous jaws among,
When its hot lava, like the bubbling wine,
Foaming doth all its monstrous edge incarnadine,
Then is alarm in Naples.
With
dismay,
Wanton and wild her weeping thousands
pour,
Convulsive grasp the ground, its rage
to stay,
Implore the angry Mount—in
vain implore!
For lo! a column tow’ring more and
more,
Of smoke and ashes from the burning crest
Shoots like a vulture’s neck reared from its
airy nest.
Sudden a flash, and from th’
enormous den
Th’ eruption’s lurid mass bursts forth
amain,
Bounding in frantic ecstasy. Ah! then
Farewell to Grecian fount and Tuscan fane!
Sails in the bay imbibe the purpling stain,
The while the lava in profusion wide
Flings o’er the mountain’s neck its showery
locks untied.
It comes—it comes! that lava
deep and rich,
That dower which fertilizes fields and
fills
New moles upon the waters, bay and beach.
Broad sea and clustered isles, one terror
thrills
As roll the red inexorable rills;
While Naples trembles in her palaces,
More helpless than the leaves when tempests shake
the trees.
Prodigious chaos, streets in ashes lost,
Dwellings devoured and vomited
again.
Roof against neighbor-roof, bewildered,
tossed.
The waters boiling and the
burning plain;
While clang the giant steeples as they reel,
Unprompted, their own tocsin peal.
Yet ’mid the wreck of cities, and
the pride
Of the green valleys and the isles laid
low,
The crash of walls, the tumult waste and
wide,
O’er sea and land; ’mid all
this work of woe,
Vesuvius still, though close its crater-glow,
Forgetful spares—Heaven wills that it should
spare, The lonely cell where kneels an aged priest
in prayer.
Fraser’s Magazine.
("La salle est magnifique.")
[IV. Aug. 23, 1839.]
