The Last Days of Pompeii Part 48

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 s.h.i.+ver, '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 ca.s.sia 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!

Rus.h.i.+ng 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 ma.s.sive 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.

The last sparks were extinguished by the attendants--the embers were collected. Steeped in the rarest wine and the costliest odorous, the remains were placed in a silver urn, which was solemnly stored in one of the neighboring sepulchres beside the road; and they placed within it the vial full of tears, and the small coin which poetry still consecrated to the grim boatman. And the sepulchre was covered with flowers and chaplets, and incense kindled on the altar, and the tomb hung round with many lamps.

But the next day, when the priest returned with fresh offerings to the tomb, he found that to the relics of heathen superst.i.tion some unknown hands had added a green palm-branch. He suffered it to remain, unknowing that it was the sepulchral emblem of Christianity.

When the above ceremonies were over, one of the Praeficae three times sprinkled the mourners from the purifying branch of laurel, uttering the last word, 'Ilicet!'--Depart!--and the rite was done.

But first they paused to utter--weepingly and many times--the affecting farewell, 'Salve Eternum!' And as Ione yet lingered, they woke the parting strain.

SALVE ETERNUM

I

Farewell! O soul departed!

Farewell! O sacred urn!

Bereaved and broken-hearted, To earth the mourners turn.

To the dim and dreary sh.o.r.e, Thou art gone our steps before!

But thither the swift Hours lead us, And thou dost but a while precede us, Salve--salve!

Loved urn, and thou solemn cell, Mute ashes!--farewell, farewell!

Salve--salve!

II

Ilicet--ire licet-- Ah, vainly would we part!

Thy tomb is the faithful heart.

About evermore we bear thee; For who from the heart can tear thee?

Vainly we sprinkle o'er us The drops of the cleansing stream; And vainly bright before us The l.u.s.tral fire shall beam.

For where is the charm expelling Thy thought from its sacred dwelling?

Our griefs are thy funeral feast, And Memory thy mourning priest.

Salve--salve!

III

Ilicet--ire licet!

The spark from the hearth is gone Wherever the air shall bear it; The elements take their own-- The shadows receive thy spirit.

It will soothe thee to feel our grief, As thou glid'st by the Gloomy River!

If love may in life be brief, In death it is fixed for ever.

Salve--salve!

In the hall which our feasts illume, The rose for an hour may bloom; But the cypress that decks the tomb-- The cypress is green for ever!

Salve--salve!

Chapter IX