Pompeii

I got off on a kick about Pompeii--no, I don't like to read about people dying grisly deaths, but Pompeii is so tragic it's almost poetic. I wrote a--um, it rhymes and it has a tune, but I wouldn't necessarily call it a song--about it.

Come listen to my story
I'll sing to you my song
Come sit beside me gently
I cannot stay for long
Do you heed my words--
My heart's been sore, indeed,
Since the night of terror when we suffered
From a mountains cruel greed.

It was a gentle summer's day
When the winds blew cool and soft
The sea, it glittered as a mirror
Of the sky pinned far aloft.
Wild, blue haunting sea!
Waves like shaking ground.
But the worst was coming--coming faster.
Then, a warning's dreadful sound.

I saw a cloud come from the mountain
From a craked stone in the street.
If only I had gone then--
Oh, I did not trust my feet.
No wild panic touched
The people's hearts around.
So we supped as normal--little knowing
The ash'd come falling down.

I ran away from the villa
With two servants and my child
We sailed far from Vesuvius--
Mountain so large and wild!
Others stayed, my family, too...
Their fate is written in the ashes.
They, and all, the mountain slew.

I came back a year later
Came to the seaside town
The town was gone, only ashes lay there
And whispers circled 'round and 'round.
Screaming, crying, terrifying!
Ghosts of cruel deaths.
Wild and tragic, wild and haunting
In their ghostly breaths.

Come listen to my story
I'll sing to you my song
Come sit beside me gently
I cannot stay for long
Do you heed my words--
My heart's been sore, indeed,
Since the night of terror when we suffered
From a mountains cruel greed.