My
fancy shapes the air till I see over the darkly lifted, castle-rock the
triple crossing swords of Greek, Carthaginian, and Roman in the
age-long duel, and as these fade, the springing brands of Byzantine,
Arab, and Norman, and yet again the heavy blades of France, Spain, and
Sicily; and ever, like rain or snow, falls the bloody dew on this lone
hill-wide. "Oh, wherefore?" I whisper; and all is silent save the surge
still lifting round the coast the far voices of the old Ionian sea. I
have wondered that the children of Etna should dwell in its lovely
paradise, as I thought how often, how terribly, the lava has poured
forth upon it, the shower of ashes fallen, the black horror of volcanic
eruption overwhelmed the land. Yet, sum it all, pang by pang, all that
Etna ever wrought of woe to the sons of men, the agonies of her
burnings, the terrors of her living entombments, all her manifold deaths
at once, and what were it in comparison with the blood that has flowed
on this hillside, the slaughter, the murder, the infinite pain here
suffered at the hands of man. O Etna, it is not thou that man should
fear! He should fear his brother-man.
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