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Had the fierce ashes of some fiery peak
Been hurl'd so high they ranged about the globe?
For day by day, thro' many a blood-red eve . . .
The wrathful sunset glared.
As Bulwer Lytton had used the eruption of Vesuvius as the
background to The Last Days of Pompeii , so Tennyson pulled the
eruption of Krakatoa back in time to create a suitably apocalyp-
tic context for the death of the anchorite Telemachus, 'bathed in
that lurid crimson'. Krakatoa was not Tennyson's first volcano
background. He had described Kilauea in Hawaii in his poem
about the Christian woman Kapiolani defying the pagan god of
the volcano, Pelé:
Long as the lava-light
Glares from the lava-lake
Dazing the starlight,
Long as the silvery vapour in daylight
Over the mountain
Floats, with the glory of Kapiolani be mingled with either
on Hawa-i-ee.
The New York Times reported that the colours in the sky
above the eastern seaboard of the United States were so bright in
red and purple, that some were convinced that they saw the Stars
and Stripes carpeting the heavens:
Soon after 5 o'clock the western horizon suddenly flamed
into a brilliant scarlet, which crimsoned sky and clouds.
People in the streets were startled at the unwonted sight and
gathered in little groups on all the corners to gaze into the
West. Many thought that a great fire was in progress . . . The
sky that morning was fairly aglow with crimson and golden
fires, when suddenly, to their great astonishment, an immense
American flag, composed of the national colours, stood out
in bold relief high in the heavens, continuing in view for a
considerable length of time.¹4
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