Page:A Picture-book without Pictures and Other Stories (1848).djvu/71



I will give thee a picture of Pompeii,— said the Moon. I have been in the suburbs, the Street of Tombs, as it is called, where once the rejoicing youths, with roses around their brows, danced with the lovely sisters of Lais. Now the silence of death reigns here; German soldiers in the pay of Naples keep guard here, and play at cards and dice. A crowd of foreigners, from the other side of the mountains, wandered into the city, accompanied by the guard. They wished to see this city, arisen from the grave, by the full clear light of the Moon; and I showed to them the tracks of the chariot-wheels in the streets paved with broad slabs of lava; I showed to them the names upon