At Pompeii

At Pompeii I heard a woman laugh, And turned to find the reason of her mirth; Saw but the silent figure of a girl That centuries had mummied into earth The running figure of a little maid With face half-hidden in her shielding arm, Silent, yet screaming, yea, in ev'ry limb The cruel torture of her dread alarm. At Pompeii I heard a maiden shriek All down the years from out the distant past; Blind in the awful darkness still she runs; Death in the mould of fear her form has cast. A little maid once soft and sweet and white, Full of the morning's hope, and love and joy, That Nature, moving to the voice of Time, Shook her dark wings to wither and destroy. At Pompeii I saw a woman bend Above this dead, pronounce an epitaph; The mother of a child, it may have been. Oh horrible! I heard a woman laugh.