WHEN the Romans, the never-to-be-forgotten Romans--
Romans, Roman citizens, S. P. Q. R.--
Travelled out of Pompeii,
Pompeii!
When Mount Vesuvius was pouring down her lava,
Dust--Ashes--Scoria,
Ruin, Desolation,
Eternal Misery!
Fire-works, Annihilation,
And Things.
They left a Sentry standing at the door,
They did.
Citizens went rushing past him,
Rushing like hurlycanes,
Like hydrants,
Like rifle-bullets on their travels,
Carrying baggage--
Some of it marked 'LUCIUS SEMPRONIUS,'
Some of it 'DRUSILLA.'
Band-boxes, inscribed with the _nomina_ of MARCIA MESSALINA;
The trunks of FLAVIUS GRACCHUS,
The bronzes of SPURIUS,
The Elephantine books of LAUFELLA,
Of ÆGLE, LALAGE, CHIONE, DIONE, CLODIA,
SULPITIA, LAIS, BASSA,
And the traps of all that fast crowd,
The jolly, half-Greek Romans of that Blue-Sea town.
It was a fast party, and no mistake;
Used to cutting up high old didoes,
Going in on Falernian,
_Nunc pede libero_,
Myrrhine cups, Serican mantles, beautiful slaves,
Harp and psaltery, kisses and wine, _alma_ VENUS!
Live and love, you beauty--Beauty is Divine!
Go it, girls--go it while you're young!
_Sic vita--hodie nobis.
Disce bone clerice virgines amare,
Quare sciunt dulcia oscula prestare.
Juventutem floridam tuum conservare,
Et cetera._
Now they ran, shrieking, bewildered, pale-white,
Scared to fits--
Poor, pretty, little unfortunate devils,
Having a hard old time of it:
While a newly-escaped convict, a fellow named CRISPIN,
Who was to have been thrown to the lions in the circus,
But who had got out of his cage and _feliciter evasit_
Just escaped martyrdom and canonization,
Stood on a dung-hill, preaching Millerism
To the unfortunate Pompeians.
'Sarves yer right,' quoth he,
In uncommonly bad Latin. He was a Thracian shoe-maker!
'Sarves yer right--
_Dives eritis_--you used to be rich as blazes,
Fat and sarcy--every thing but ragged,
Dern you! Now things is workin'--
O _Domine Deus_! an't I glad!
Now you're all goin to thunder
Along with yer blamed old gods and goddesses,
JUPITER JOVIS, MARS, APOLLO!
Oh! git ëout!
DIANA! Talk about _her_ bein' decent!
Shaw!
Law bless your soul! she an't no better than she should be.
JUNO! she _was_ a nice lot, she was I _don't_ think:
Didn't marry her brother nor nothin', I spose!
HERCULES! There's a pretty character now, to make a god of!
Why, he never was nothing better'n a sort of sporting man:
Used to go boxin' rëound in a low way,
An' killin' things.
Worship him! I'd as soon worship an old chaw tobacco:
Fact! Just as live's not.
MERCURY!
Sounds well, don't it, to be prayin' to _him_?
Shows yer derned thieves any how, to think of such a thing.
Why, he's nothin' but a pick-pocket,
A common burgular; a hoss-stealer;
A fellow who shoves the queer and buzzes blokes, as they say in
their low slang.
That's what _he_ is. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
'Fore I'd be seen in his temple, I'd go worship CLOACINA. Fact!
That's what _I'd_ do.
Oh! they're a putty set--these divinities of yourn:
MINERVY, for instance. _She_ don't know nothin',
She an't o' no account. _She's_ a humbug.
Why, I know a gal, PAULA INNOCENTIA; lives round by the Forum;
sells slop.
Kin read the 'Pistle to the Romans right strut through--
Well _she_ can. That's more'n MINERVY ever did.
Then, there's NEPTUNE! Now I arsk you as reas'nable men,
_Don't_ you consider him as an old blower--a regular gas-bag.
Feller citizens: I arsk you to argy this point temperately and
soberly, without usin' no aggravatin language.
Don't you think a man must be a blarsted old fool to believe in any
such narsty stuff as this beastly _my_-thology of yourn?
Shaw! There an't no use talkin',
It's all a dead cock in the pit, the hull of this Olympus:
I don't say nothin agin PLUTO, however,
(Only you ought to call him SATAN by rights.)
_Some_ of you'll find out mighty soon, _I_ calculate, whether
_he's_ a smellin' rëound or not.
Rather!
Oh! go 'long with you. Sho-o-o-o!
Yeu narsty, indecent, leëwd, unproper critters!
Yeu miserable coots.
Fellers with about half the interlect of a common-sized shad,
Yeu goneys. _Ya--ya--yap--yap_--BOO!
Yeu don't have an imparticularly hard time on 't. Sa-ay!
Layin' off on _triclinia_, drinkin' Falernian out 'er _pocula_,
and snake-handled Etruskin _calices_,
_Serpens in patera Myronis arte_,
To the health of VENUS!
_Ea-au-au-a'a'a'h!_ You make me sick!
VENUS!!
_Bibis venenum_, you drink serpent pison and no mistake under them
'ere circumstances.
VENUS! Sh-aw!
She 's just the filthiest....
....dern'dest....
....ugh--ugh!'
(Here he grew black in the face with howling and spitting.)
'Beautiful indeed! I _hate_ beauty. Blarst it!
'Tan't moral. I'd rather see the lousiest old slave a-goin',
Than all the clean-washed beauty of all Lesbos,
Corinth, Athens, Rhodes,
Or any other man.
Look-a-here, you goneys! There's a statue of VENUS now:
Mighty putty--an't it? _Vide, dico, vobis!_
Here's a big pavin'-stun. I'm a-goin' to smash her nose in.
I'll spile some of your pretty for you--_moecha damnata!_
You carn't do nothin' to one of the Chosen, you know!
Here goes at her! Rip! snap!--one, two, three!'
And it flew from his hands. The multitude, in terror,
Paused in their flight, shocked at the sacrilege,
Waiting the wrath of the foam-white-limbed Goddess
APHRODITE, eternal daughter of sun-shine,
Of the blue-sea and beauty infinite.
Was it the accursed stone which struck the features
Chiselled by PHIDIAS or SCOPAS?
Was it the shock of the earthquake?
But as the mountain gave a roar tremendous,
As though all Orcus had burst loose on earth,
And in a flash, as of all JOVE'S lightning,
Down fell the marble queen of loveliness,
Crushing to kindred dirt, in one foul mass,
CRISPIN the Scoffer. Lo! the gods are just!
'That's a rather Remarkable,' quoth Sam, as he wound up.
('How well you read!' exclaimed four voices at once.)
'It's a great pity!' said Amelia, 'that he broke that beautiful
statue. How well it would have looked, Mace, on that pedestal in the
corner of the library. I do wish you d buy something to put on it.
It looks so empty. I saw a lovely bronze Psyche at Haughwout's the
other----'
'Well,' said I, 'I 'spose I must hoe out my row and finish the
furnishing: so send her up!'
'And the poem, Nella?'
'Lo! the gods are just,' replied Nella, repeating the last line. Ah!
I hope so. I hope that _no_ form of beauty which man ever looked
at with love, ever did die, or ever will. I should think that
something were wrong if I really believed that that statue which
Crispin broke will never be seen again in all eternity by me. No;
every lovely face and flower and breath of music lives somewhere,
as a grain lies in the earth waiting for the spring. Nature has the
germ and the secret: all _will_ rise again more beautiful than ever.'