Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Last Days of Pompeii

BOOK THE FOURTH 8. Chapter VIII (continued)

The sound of her piercing voice aroused the sympathy of the mourners, and they broke into loud and rude lament. This startled, this recalled Ione; she looked up hastily and confusedly, as if for the first time sensible of the presence of those around.

'Ah!' she murmured with a shiver, 'we are not then alone!' With that, after a brief pause, she rose; and her pale and beautiful countenance was again composed and rigid. With fond and trembling hands, she unclosed the lids of the deceased; but when the dull glazed eye, no longer beaming with love and life, met hers, she shrieked aloud, as if she had seen a spectre. Once more recovering herself she kissed again and again the lids, the lips, the brow; and with mechanic and unconscious hand, received from the high priest of her brother's temple the funeral torch.

The sudden burst of music, the sudden song of the mourners announced the birth of the sanctifying flame.

           HYMN TO THE WIND

                I

       On thy couch of cloud reclined,
        Wake, O soft and sacred Wind!
        Soft and sacred will we name thee,
        Whosoe'er the sire that claim thee--
       Whether old Auster's dusky child,
        Or the loud son of Eurus wild;
        Or his who o'er the darkling deeps,
        From the bleak North, in tempest sweeps;
        Still shalt thou seem as dear to us
        As flowery-crowned Zephyrus,
        When, through twilight's starry dew,
        Trembling, he hastes his nymph to woo.

                II

       Lo! our silver censers swinging,
        Perfumes o'er thy path are flinging--
       Ne'er o'er Tempe's breathless valleys,
        Ne'er o'er Cypria's cedarn alleys,
        Or the Rose-isle's moonlit sea,
        Floated sweets more worthy thee.
        Lo! around our vases sending
        Myrrh and nard with cassia blending:
        Paving air with odorous meet,
        For thy silver-sandall'd feet!

               III

       August and everlasting air!
          The source of all that breathe and be,
        From the mute clay before thee bear
          The seeds it took from thee!
        Aspire, bright Flame! aspire!
          Wild wind!--awake, awake!
        Thine own, O solemn Fire!
          O Air, thine own retake!