The Flower of the Desert

"Men loved darkness rather than the light."

Here on the barren soilOf Mount Vesuvius dread,That fell destroyer sternWho doth delight no other flower or tree,Thy solitary blossoms thou dost spread,Fragrant Genista sweet,Rejoicing in the deserts. I beheldThy flowers adorn the lonely hills that standAround the city grand,That was of yore the Empress of mankind,And for the reign resigned,They with their dumb solemnity austereSeem from the wanderer to claim a tear.Now I again behold thee on this shore;Fond of sad haunts, abandoned by the world,Companion of misfortune evermore.These regions, sprinkled o'erWith showers of barren ashes and suppliedWith lava petrified,

Resounding to the pilgrim as he treads:Where we see twining in the sun the snake,And where in caverns darkThe timorous hares their wonted refuge take:Were happy homes, and fields,Like those where harvest now its rich boon yields,Alive with lowing herds;They were palatial hallsAnd wondrous gardens, dearUnto the great, and famous cities' walls:All which the haughty mountain with the torrentsThat from his fiery crater ruthless rolled,Crushed, while their inmates were by death destroyed.Now ruin makes a voidOf all around where, beauteous flower, thou growest,And as in pity for the scene of woeUpon the air a perfume sweet bestowest,Consoling to the desert. To this shoreLet him proceed whose wont it is to praiseOur earthly state, and let him see how muchOur race is held in careBy loving Nature. And he here as wellCan more exactly tellHow far extends the power of human kind,Whom its harsh tyrant, when it least may fear,With slight exertion can destroy in part,And with a little moreCould in an instant wholly sweep away,Annihilate, and slay.Upon these shores are seenOf our poor human race"The splendid fortunes and progressive pace."Here gaze as on a mirror,Thou age unwise and proud,Who errest from the wayThat rising thought illumined with its ray,And as thy steps a backward course pursue,Art glad of thy return,Which seemeth progress to thy troubled view.Thy folly by all mindsWhose evil destiny made thee their sire,Is pampered, even thoughThey, when unheeded, throwDisdain on thee. Not IWill so inglorious sink into my grave,'Twere easy enough, I know,For me to join the others in their wrongAnd to thine ears melodious make my song:But rather the disdain of thee that liesWithin my bosom deep,I shall, as widely as I can, display,Although neglect for thoseBe held in store who much their age oppose.This evil which I've borneWith thee in common, moved till now my scorn.Fair freedom is the subject of thy dreams:Yet thou enslavest thought,By whom alone we're broughtFrom rudeness by degrees, by whom aloneIs culture fostered, who alone can sendThe fate of nations to a better end.So much didst thou in horror hold the truthOf the harsh doom and dungeon-like abodeThat Nature gave us. Therefore didst thou turn,With craven soul, thy vision from the lightThat made it clear; and in thy flight dost spurnAs vile who seek its rays,And him alone dost praise,Who, scornful of himself or of the rest,Above the stars says man's degree is blest.

He, poor of state and suffering of frame,Who has a generous and lofty soul,Doth not the homage claimThat gold and strength procure,Nor of a splendid life and figure proudMaketh among the crowdAn empty show absurd;But not with treasures or with vigour blessedHe owns himself unfeigning, and is heardIn discourse to be candid on himself,Still giving truth its due.Unwise I hold his mind,And not of loftier kind,Who, born to perish and in sorrow bred,?Says: "I am made for joy;"And with unhallowed prideThe annals of humanity supplied,Grand destinies and wondrous happiness,Which even to Heaven are strange, not to our globeAlone, predicting hereTo those whom stormy waveOr breath of air malignant, or the shockOf earthquake, so destroysThat Memory scarcely lingers o'er their grave.A noble nature heWho with a spirit freeDares mortal eye to raiseUpon our common fate; who with bold tongue,Debarring nought from truth,Owneth the evil Fortune bade prevail,And our low state and frail;Who in affliction direShows fortitude and lofty strength of soul,Nor the fraternal hatred and the ireSo frequent on our earth, and worst of ills,Unto his misery addeth by declaringMan guilty of his woe, but casteth blameOn her alone who merits all the shame,Who gives birth to mankind,But all whose deeds we harsh and cruel find.Her he calls hostile; and considering men,As truth itself declares,In union joined against her evil waysBy social bonds of old,He as confederates doth all mortals holdAmong themselves, and allWith equal love surveys,And giveth aid where 'tis desired and neededIn various peril and disastrous ways,Beset by common warfare. And to raiseA vengeful hand for injuries of men,Our neighbour to destroy,So ill-advised he deems as on the fieldOf battle, close surrounded by the foe,When most the fight doth rageAgainst our friends to wageDisastrous war, oblivious of the rest,And with pernicious swordTo spread dismay and slaughter 'mid their ranks.When thoughts like these are made,As once they were, unto the nations known,By real knowledge in its influence vast;And the dread horror shownThat first 'gainst Nature badeOur humankind in social chain unite:Then shall the just, the honest and the right,And patriotic fire,And mercy find a more enduring sourceThan is supplied by haughty dreams and vainThat now the vulgar righteousness sustain,Which proves itself even soAs everything that doth from error flow.

Full often on this shore,Clad by the hardened floodOf lava in a garment dark of hueThat seems to surge, I seat myself at night,And shining on the saddened land, the starsIn plains of purest azure meet my view,Reflected by the deep;And through the space serene in circles vastThe sparkling Heavens open on my sight,And when my vision on those lights I cast,That seem so small to be,And are in truth so largeThat by their side would shrivel land and seaTo nothingness; to whomNot humankind aloneIs utterly unknown,But even this globe where man is less than nought;And when I gaze upon those clustering starsIn greater distance without any end,Seeming to us like vapour, unto whomNot merely man and not the earth he treads,But all the stars, the neighbours of our world,And even the golden radiance of the Sun,Were never known, or else appear as theyUnto our sight, a spotOf luminous mist: what then unto my thought,Becomest thou, mankind?And when I bear in mindThy state below, whereof the signs are seenUpon the soil I tread: and when I thinkThy pride doth call thee queenAnd end of all, and how thou lovest oftTo fable that unto this grain obscureOf wretched dust which bears the name of earth,For love of thee, of universal thingsThe lords descended, and were known to dwellBenignly in thy midst: and that the dreamsSo idle even the present age renews,Opprobrious to the wise, although it seemsIn knowledge and in deedSuperior to the past: what passion fires,O hapless race of man, what thought inspiresFor thee my heart? In truth, I cannot sayIf mockery or if pity beareth sway.

As from its tree a ripened apple falling,By Autumn's power, nought else,Cast on the earth in full maturity,Crushes and overwhelmsThe populous abode of busy ants,Destroying all their hoarded treasures vast,The fruit of summer toil,Which they had piled in those elaborate cavesFormed by their cunning in the yielding soil:Even thus in dread and thundering fury castFrom the deep rumbling wombOf yon destructive mountain in its ire,Night and destruction in a cloud of ashes,Of rocks and lurid fire,Fall on the land devoted to its doom;And boiling torrents runAnd down the mountain flowWith rapid wrath and all-consuming rage;And o'er the verdure fallsA furious rush and grandOf liquid metal and of fiery sand,Such as o'erwhelmed the cities on the shore,And in an instant they were seen no more.On their deserted siteWe see the browzing goat,And other cities we behold arise,Beneath whose splendid domesFull many a vast and ancient ruin lies;And even these lofty wallsThe haughty mountain threatens and appals.Nature no more doth holdIn tenderness and loveThe race of man than insects of the earth;And if we in mankindMay less destruction find,'Tis that of offspring it has greater dearth.

One thousand and eight hundred years have passedSince by the force of subterranean fireThe peopled cities found an end so dire;And still the peasant full of anxious fearsFor what he planted on the arid soil,Amid the death-like ashes and the stones,Suspicious turns his eyeTo where he sees, aspiring to the sky,The fatal peak, as cruel as of yore,For ever threatening ruin to his home.And oft at night, alarmed,Lying for sleepless hours,In terror listening to the wandering wind,At last he rises and ascends his roof,And gazes thence upon the dreaded courseOf boiling lava, rushing from the wombOf the unexhausted mount,O'er sandy ridge, and casting lurid lightOn Capri's distant strand,On Naples' bay and Mergellina's land.He wakes his children and his trembling wife,If he perceives it coming, or withinHis household well heats seething waters boil;And with whatever they can snatch in haste,Away they rush, and witness from afarTheir dwelling and their field,From hunger and despair their only shield,By the disastrous torrents soon laid waste,That fiercely rush and cruelly invade,And lie for ever on the wreck they've made.Even as a skeleton that from its graveIs brought to light by piety or greed,The dead Pompeii to the realms of dayFrom old oblivion doth again proceed:And from the ruined Forum and the fileOf shattered columns tall,The wanderer gazes on the cloven peakAnd on the smoky crest,Still threatening even the ruins in their fallAnd in the horror of the secret night,Among theatres empty and forlorn,Among the mouldering temples and amongThe shattered houses where the bat doth hide,Like an ill-omened torchIn empty fanes and halls untenanted,The terrors run of the funereal stream,Which in the shade doth gleamAnd tinges all around with fiery red.Of man unconscious and of all the yearsThat he calls old, and offspring laid by sire,Thus Nature stands in ever-blooming youth;Or rather, she proceedsUpon a path so long, a course so wide,That to our eyes she never seems to move.Meanwhile realms fall, and tongues and nations waneShe seeth nought, and man doth still presumeEternity to claim in haughty pride.

And thou, slow-spreading flower,With many an odorous wood,Who dost adorn these regions desolate;Thou too ere long shalt sink beneath the powerOf the unpitying subterranean fire,Which will extend its ire,Returning to the scene it knew of old,Unto thy gentle forests, and beneathThe fatal weight thou wilt thy head incline,Though innocent, without a murmuring wail,But not till then in cowardice cast downWith supplication and imploring prayerBefore the future tyrant, but not raisedWith frenzied pride unto the very stars,Nor on the desert whereThou hadst thy dwelling-place,Not by thy will, by the decree of Fate:

But wiser far, and lessIll-starred than man, because thou didst not think.

Thy race endowed by Doom,Or by thyself, with an immortal bloom.