A Poem on Sir Edward John Poynter’s ‘Faithful unto Death,’ by Peter Hartley
From Parthenope’s coast each to his post,
Beseeching eyes upraised with steady gaze.
That night would nature’s cruelty erase
A city from the broiling earth and roast
The dying with the lying dead. Utmost
The pain, the choking pyroclastic haze
Whose toxic clouds cloak rivers all ablaze,
Each supplicating cast its living ghost.
The courage of the fearful soars beyond
The reckless resignation of the blind.
Vesuvius: our fears today still correspond
With his the way two thousand years behind
Our time, recorded on a water clock,
These seething seas met solid streaming rock.
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