Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Last Days of Pompeii

BOOK THE FOURTH 8. Chapter VIII (continued)

                IV

       It comes! it comes! Lo! it sweeps,
          The Wind we invoke the while!
        And crackles, and darts, and leaps
          The light on the holy pile!
        It rises! its wings interweave
        With the flames--how they howl and heave!
            Toss'd, whirl'd to and fro,
            How the flame-serpents glow!
            Rushing higher and higher,
            On--on, fearful Fire!
            Thy giant limbs twined
            With the arms of the Wind!
        Lo! the elements meet on the throne
        Of death--to reclaim their own!

                 V

       Swing, swing the censer round--
       Tune the strings to a softer sound!
        From the chains of thy earthly toil,
        From the clasp of thy mortal coil,
        From the prison where clay confined thee,
        The hands of the flame unbind thee!
            O Soul! thou art free--all free!
        As the winds in their ceaseless chase,
          When they rush o'er their airy sea,
        Thou mayst speed through the realms of space,
          No fetter is forged for thee!
        Rejoice! o'er the sluggard tide
        Of the Styx thy bark can glide,
        And thy steps evermore shall rove
        Through the glades of the happy grove;
        Where, far from the loath'd Cocytus,
        The loved and the lost invite us.
        Thou art slave to the earth no more!
          O soul, thou art freed!--and we?--
       Ah! when shall our toil be o'er?
          Ah! when shall we rest with thee?

And now high and far into the dawning skies broke the fragrant fire; it flushed luminously across the gloomy cypresses--it shot above the massive walls of the neighboring city; and the early fisherman started to behold the blaze reddening on the waves of the creeping sea.

But Ione sat down apart and alone, and, leaning her face upon her hands, saw not the flame, nor heard the lamentation of the music: she felt only one sense of loneliness--she had not yet arrived to that hallowing sense of comfort, when we know that we are not alone--that the dead are with us!

The breeze rapidly aided the effect of the combustibles placed within the pile. By degrees the flame wavered, lowered, dimmed, and slowly, by fits and unequal starts, died away--emblem of life itself; where, just before, all was restlessness and flame, now lay the dull and smouldering ashes.