X.

'Gainst this pitiless flame who condemned could prevail? Who these walls, burnt and calcined, could venture to scale? Yet their vile hands they sought to uplift, Yet they cared still to ask from what God, by what law? In their last sad embrace, 'midst their honor and awe, Of this mighty volcano the drift. 'Neath great slabs of marble they hid them in vain, 'Gainst this everliving fire, God's own flaming rain! 'Tis the rash whom God seeks out the first; They call on their gods, who were deaf to their cries, For the punishing flame caused their cold granite eyes In tears of hot lava to burst! Thus away in the whirlwind did everything pass, The man and the city, the soil and its grass! God burnt this sad, sterile champaign; Naught living was left of this people destroyed, And the unknown wind which blew over the void, Each mountain changed into a plain.