⁠Tell me of where she is, what is her state?
Happy or miserable? or again,
⁠We should rejoice in, or lament her fate?

To thee I may repeat it, others gay
⁠Will laugh at my dark fancy; not long past
The time I was by that enchanting bay
⁠Of the Tyrrhenian sea; the city vast,

Mother of pleasures, I forsook, and bent,
⁠Absorbed, my feeble steps, where lowly lies
Pompeii; palaces with gardens blent
⁠And fountains brilliant, shone before my eyes;

But deeper penetrates the mind, and sad,
⁠Slowly along I went with heavy heart:
Flowers amid lava grew! and rich, and glad
⁠Today the scenes on every side impart

The towns and villages, which others hide
⁠That stood as happy there a former day;
Those now that flourish built up by the side
⁠Of some forgotten that have passed away.

At length I came where we the walls descry
⁠Of the deserted city, which the abode
Proclaim'd it was of men in times gone by;