The Last Days of Pompeii by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (interesting books to read txt) 📖

hill, the eternal stone; The crowned Lydian, in his parching woe, And green Callirrhoe's monster-headed son— These shalt thou see, dim shadowed through the dark, Which makes the sky of Pluto's dreary shore; Lo! where thou stand'st, pale-gazing on the bark, That waits our rite to bear thee trembling o'er! Come, then! no more delay!—the phantom pines Amidst the Unburied for its latest home; O'er the grey sky the torch impatient shines— Come, mourner, forth!—the lost one bids thee come.

As the hymn died away, the group parted in twain; and placed upon a couch, spread with a purple pall, the corpse of Apaecides was carried forth, with the feet foremost. The designator, or marshal of the sombre ceremonial, accompanied by his torch-bearers, clad in black, gave the signal, and the procession moved dreadly on.

First went the musicians, playing a slow march—the solemnity of the lower instruments broken by many a louder and wilder burst of the funeral trumpet: next followed the hired mourners, chanting their dirges to the dead; and the female voices were mingled with those of boys, whose tender years made still more striking the contrast of life and death—the fresh leaf and the withered one. But the players, the buffoons, the archimimus (whose duty it was to personate the dead)—these, the customary attendants at ordinary funerals, were banished from a funeral attended with so many terrible associations.

The priests of Isis came next in their snowy garments, barefooted, and supporting sheaves of corn; while before the corpse were carried the images of the deceased and his many Athenian forefathers. And behind the bier followed, amidst her women, the sole surviving relative of the dead—her head bare, her locks disheveled, her face paler than marble, but composed and still, save ever and anon, as some tender thought—awakened by the music, flashed upon the dark lethargy of woe, she covered that countenance with her hands, and sobbed unseen; for hers were not the noisy sorrow, the shrill lament, the ungoverned gesture, which characterized those who honored less faithfully. In that age, as in all, the channel of deep grief flowed hushed and still.

And so the procession swept on, till it had traversed the streets, passed the city gate, and gained the Place of Tombs without the wall, which the traveler yet beholds.

Raised in the form of an altar—of unpolished pine, amidst whose interstices were placed preparations of combustible matter—stood the funeral pyre; and around it drooped the dark and gloomy cypresses so consecrated by song to the tomb.

As soon as the bier was placed upon the pile, the attendants parting on either side, Ione passed up to the couch, and stood before the unconscious clay for some moments motionless and silent. The features of the dead had been composed from the first agonized expression of violent death. Hushed for ever the terror and the doubt, the contest of passion, the awe of religion, the struggle of the past and present, the hope and the horror of the future!—of all that racked and desolated the breast of that young aspirant to the Holy of Life, what trace was visible in the awful serenity of that impenetrable brow and unbreathing lip? The sister gazed, and not a sound was heard amidst the crowd; there was something terrible, yet softening, also, in the silence; and when it broke, it broke sudden and abrupt—it broke, with a loud and passionate cry—the vent of long-smothered despair.

'My brother! my brother!' cried the poor orphan, falling upon the couch; 'thou whom the worm on thy path feared not—what enemy couldst thou provoke? Oh, is it in truth come to this? Awake! awake! We grew together! Are we thus torn asunder? Thou art not dead—thou sleepest. Awake! awake!'

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! 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,