Page:Lyra heroica.djvu/183

 Many a tall and goodly man,

Scorched and shrivelled to a span,

When he fell to earth again

Like a cinder strewed the plain :

Down the ashes shower like rain;

Some fell in the gulf, which received the sprinkles

With a thousand circling wrinkles;

Some fell on the shore, but far away

Scattered o'er the isthmus lay;

Christian or Moslem, which be they?

Let their mother say and say !

When in cradled rest they lay,

And each nursing mother smiled

On the sweet sleep of her child,

Little deemed she such a day

Would rend those tender limbs away.

Not the matrons that them bore

Could discern their offspring more;

That one moment left no trace

More of human form or face

Save a scattered scalp or bone :

And down came blazing rafters, strown

Around, and many a falling stone,

Deeply dinted in the clay,

All blackened there and reeking lay.

All the living things that heard

That deadly earth-shock disappeared:

The wild birds flew; the wild dogs fled,

And howling left the unburied dead;

The camels from their keepers broke;

The distant steer forsook the yoke

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