Rosily breathing sawdust and fresh blood,
Sleeked his moustache and rolled an amorous eye.
It was no dream. They lived their light-winged lives
In this prodigious fabric of black stone,
Slept between walls of lava, drank their wine
In taverns whose black walls had risen in fire;
Prayed on the slag of the furnace; roofed their tombs
With slabs of that slaked wrath; and saw no more
Than any flock of birds that nightly roost
On the still quivering Etna.