“⸺Thus deep beneath Earth’s bosom, and the mansions of the graves Of men, are graves of cities. Such of late, From its long sleep of darkness disenterr’d, Pompeii, with its low and buried roofs, Rose dark upon the miner’s progress, like A city of the dead! a tomb perchance Where living men were buried! Tyrant Death! How didst thou triumph then! thou us’d’st to steal Behind thy sallow harbinger disease, Or take thine open and determinate stand In battle’s ranks, with danger at thy side Forewarning gallant breasts prepar’d to die; But there—thy spect’ral visage darken’d forth, Amid the joyous bosom-scenes of life, From its invisible ambush! There it found, The myriad fantasies of hearts, and brains, Young loves, and hopes, and pleasures, all abroad, Spreading their painted wings, and wantoning, In life’s glad summer-breeze, from flower to flower; And, with the fatal spell of one dread glance. Blasted them all!—how sunk the tender maid, Then silent to the still and stiffening clasp Of her dead lover! Echo had not ceas’d To catch love’s inarticulate ecstasies, Strain’d in a first embrace—for ever, then, Fix’d statue-like in Death’s tremendous arms A hideous contrast! One fell moment still’d Lovers and foes alike; workers of good, And guilty wretches:—then the statesman’s brain, Stopp’d in its calculation, and the bard Sunk by his lyre;—the loud procession Before the Temple—all the cares of life, With action and contrivance, through the streets Thronged multitudinous, in their busy time Of bustle and magnificence,—and all Life’s thousands were abroad, and the high sounds Of civic pomp rose audible from far:— But louder rose the terrible voice of ruin Over their mirth, ‘BE STILL’D,’ and all was hush’d! Save the short shudd’ring cries that rose unheard— The up-turn’d glances from a thousand homes, Thro’ the red closing surge! awful groan Of agitated Nature! while beneath, Ten thousand victims turn’d to die:—above Bright sunbeams lit the plain—a nameless tomb.”—MATURIN. Absorbed in feelings of the most melancholy, but tenderest nature, we commenced our return to Naples, where we arrived about five o’clock in the evening.