He Woke in Terror by Edna St. Vincent Millay

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He woke in terror to a sky more bright

Than middle day; he heard the sick earth groan, / And ran to see the lazy-smoking cone

Of the fire-mountain, friendly to his sight

As his wife's hand, gone strange and full of fright;

Over his fleeing shoulder it was shown

Rolling its pitchy lake of scalding stone

Upon his house that had no feet for flight. Where did he weep? Where did he sit him down

And sorrow, with his head between his knees?

Where said the Race of Man, "Here let me drown"?

"Here let me die of hunger"? -"let me freeze"? By nightfall he has built another town:

This boiling pot, this clearing in the trees.

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