Childe Harold's Pilgrimage - Canto the Fourth

1. 1I stood in Venice, on the "Bridge of Sighs;"
2. 2A Palace and a prison on each hand:
3. 3I saw from out the wave her structures rise
4. 4As from the stroke of the Enchanter's wand:
5. 5A thousand Years their cloudy wings expand
6. 6Around me, and a dying Glory smiles
7. 7O'er the far times, when many a subject land
8. 8Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles,
9. 9Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!

1. 10She looks a sea Cybele,fresh from Ocean,
2. 11Rising with her tiara of proud towers
3. 12At airy distance, with majestic motion,
4. 13A Ruler of the waters and their powers:
5. 14And such she was;--her daughters had their dowers
6. 15From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East
7. 16Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
8. 17In purple was she robed,and of her feast
9. 18Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.

1. 19In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,
2. 20And silent rows the songless Gondolier;
3. 21Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
4. 22And Music meets not always now the ear:
5. 23Those days are gone--but Beauty still is here.
6. 24States fall--Arts fade--but Nature doth not die,
7. 25Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,
8. 26The pleasant place of all festivity,
9. 27The Revel of the earth--the Masque of Italy!

1. 28But unto us she hath a spell beyond
2. 29Her name in story, and her long array
3. 30Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond
4. 31Above the Dogeless city's vanished sway;
5. 32Ours is a trophy which will not decay
6. 33With the Rialto;Shylock and the Moor,
7. 34And Pierre,can not be swept or worn away--
8. 35The keystones of the Arch! though all were o'er,
9. 36For us repeopled were the solitary shore.

1. 37The Beings of the Mind are not of clay:
2. 38Essentially immortal, they create
3. 39And multiply in us a brighter ray
4. 40And more beloved existence:that which Fate
5. 41Prohibits to dull life in this our state
6. 42Of mortal bondage, by these Spirits supplied,
7. 43First exiles, then replaces what we hate;
8. 44Watering the heart whose early flowers have died,
9. 45And with a fresher growth replenishing the void.

1. 46Such is the refuge of our youth and age--
2. 47The first from Hope, the last from Vacancy;
3. 48And this wan feeling peoples many a page--
4. 49And, may be, that which grows beneath mine eye:
5. 50Yet there are things whose strong reality
6. 51Outshines our fairy-land; in shape and hues
7. 52More beautiful than our fantastic sky,
8. 53And the strange constellations which the Muse
9. 54O'er her wild universe is skilful to diffuse:

1. 55I saw or dreamed of such,--but let them go,--
2. 56They came like Truth--and disappeared like dreams;
3. 57And whatsoe'er they were--are now but so:
4. 58I could replace them if I would; still teems
5. 59My mind with many a form which aptly seems
6. 60Such as I sought for, and at moments found;
7. 61Let these too go--for waking Reason deems
8. 62Such over-weening phantasies unsound,
9. 63And other voices speak, and other sights surround.

1. 64I've taught me other tongues--and in strange eyes
2. 65Have made me not a stranger; to the mind
3. 66Which is itself, no changes bring surprise;
4. 67Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find
5. 68A country with--aye, or without mankind;
6. 69Yet was I born where men are proud to be,--
7. 70Not without cause; and should I leave behind
8. 71The inviolate Island of the sage and free,
9. 72And seek me out a home by a remoter sea,

1. 73Perhaps I loved it well; and should I lay
2. 74My ashes in a soil which is not mine,
3. 75My Spirit shall resume it--if we may
4. 76Unbodied choose a sanctuary.I twine
5. 77My hopes of being remembered in my line
6. 78With my land's language: if too fond and far
7. 79These aspirations in their scope incline,--
8. 80If my Fame should be, as my fortunes are,
9. 81Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar

1. 82My name from out the temple where the dead
2. 83Are honoured by the Nations--let it be--
3. 84And light the Laurels on a loftier head!
4. 85And be the Spartan's epitaph on me--
5. 86"Sparta hath many a worthier son than he.
6. 87"Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need--
7. 88The thorns which I have reaped are of the tree
8. 89I planted,--they have torn me,--and I bleed:
9. 90I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.

1. 91The spouseless Adriatic mourns her Lord,
2. 92And annual marriage now no more renewed--
3. 93The Bucentaurlies rotting unrestored,
4. 94Neglected garment of her widowhood!
5. 95St. Mark yet sees his Lionwhere he stood
6. 96Stand, but in mockery of his withered power,
7. 97Over the proud Place where an Emperor sued,
8. 98And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour
9. 99When Venice was a Queen with an unequalled dower.

1. 100The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns--
2. 101An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt;
3. 102Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains
4. 103Clank over sceptred cities; Nations melt
5. 104From Power's high pinnacle, when they have felt
6. 105The sunshine for a while, and downward go
7. 106Like Lauwine loosened from the mountain's belt;
8. 107Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo
9. 108Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe.

1. 109Before St. Mark still glow his Steeds of brass,
2. 110Their gilded collars glittering in the sun;
3. 111But is not Doria's menacecome to pass?
4. 112Are they not bridled?--Venice, lost and won,
5. 113Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done,
6. 114Sinks, like a sea-weed, unto whence she rose!
7. 115Better be whelmed beneath the waves, and shun,
8. 116Even in Destruction's depth, her foreign foes,
9. 117From whom Submission wrings an infamous repose.

1. 118In youth She was all glory,--a new Tyre,--
2. 119Her very by-word sprung from Victory,
3. 120The "Planter of the Lion,"which through fire
4. 121And blood she bore o'er subject Earth and Sea;
5. 122Though making many slaves, Herself still free,
6. 123And Europe's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite;
7. 124Witness Troy's rival, Candia!Vouch it, ye
8. 125Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's fight!
9. 126For ye are names no Time nor Tyranny can blight.

1. 127Statues of glass--all shivered--the long file
2. 128Of her dead Doges are declined to dust;
3. 129But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile
4. 130Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust;
5. 131Their sceptre broken, and their sword in rust,
6. 132Have yielded to the stranger: empty halls,
7. 133Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must
8. 134Too oft remind her who and what enthrals,
9. 135Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls.

1. 136When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse,
2. 137And fettered thousands bore the yoke of war,
3. 138Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse,
4. 139Her voice their only ransom from afar:
5. 140See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car
6. 141Of the o'ermastered Victor stops--the reins
7. 142Fall from his hands--his idle scimitar
8. 143Starts from its belt--he rends his captive's chains,
9. 144And bids him thank the Bard for Freedom and his strains.

1. 145Thus, Venice! if no stronger claim were thine,
2. 146Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot--
3. 147Thy choral memory of the Bard divine,
4. 148Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot
5. 149Which ties thee to thy tyrants; and thy lot
6. 150Is shameful to the nations,--most of all,
7. 151Albion! to thee:the Ocean queen should not
8. 152Abandon Ocean's children; in the fall
9. 153Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall.

1. 154I loved her from my boyhood--she to me
2. 155Was as a fairy city of the heart,
3. 156Rising like water-columns from the sea--
4. 157Of Joy the sojourn, and of Wealth the mart;
5. 158And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakespeare's art,
6. 159Had stamped her image in me, and even so,
7. 160Although I found her thus, we did not part;
8. 161Perchance even dearer in her day of woe,
9. 162Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show.

1. 163I can repeople with the past--and of
2. 164The present there is still for eye and thought,
3. 165And meditation chastened down, enough;
4. 166And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought;
5. 167And of the happiest moments which were wrought
6. 168Within the web of my existence, some
7. 169From thee, fair Venice!have their colours caught:
8. 170There are some feelings Time can not benumb,
9. 171Nor Torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb.

1. 172But from their nature will the Tannengrow
2. 173Loftiest on loftiest and least sheltered rocks,
3. 174Rooted in barrenness, where nought below
4. 175Of soil supports them 'gainst the Alpine shocks
5. 176Of eddying storms; yet springs the trunk, and mocks
6. 177The howling tempest, till its height and frame
7. 178Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks
8. 179Of bleak, gray granite into life it came,
9. 180And grew a giant tree;--the Mind may grow the same.

1. 181Existence may be borne, and the deep root
2. 182Of life and sufferance make its firm abode
3. 183In bare and desolated bosoms: mute
4. 184The camel labours with the heaviest load,
5. 185And the wolf dies in silence--not bestowed
6. 186In vain should such example be; if they,
7. 187Things of ignoble or of savage mood,
8. 188Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay
9. 189May temper it to bear,--it is but for a day.

1. 190All suffering doth destroy, or is destroyed,
2. 191Even by the sufferer--and, in each event,
3. 192Ends:--Some, with hope replenished and rebuoyed,
4. 193Return to whence they came--with like intent,
5. 194And weave their web again; some, bowed and bent,
6. 195Wax gray and ghastly, withering ere their time,
7. 196And perish with the reed on which they leant;
8. 197Some seek devotion--toil--war--good or crime,
9. 198According as their souls were formed to sink or climb.

1. 199But ever and anon of griefs subdued
2. 200There comes a token like a Scorpion's sting,
3. 201Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued;
4. 202And slight withal may be the things which bring
5. 203Back on the heart the weight which it would fling
6. 204Aside for ever: it may be a sound--
7. 205A tone of music--summer's eve--or spring--
8. 206A flower--the wind--the Ocean--which shall wound,
9. 207Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound;

1. 208And how and why we know not, nor can trace
2. 209Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind,
3. 210But feel the shock renewed, nor can efface
4. 211The blight and blackening which it leaves behind,
5. 212Which out of things familiar, undesigned,
6. 213When least we deem of such, calls up to view
7. 214The Spectres whom no exorcism can bind,--
8. 215The cold--the changed--perchance the dead, anew--
9. 216The mourned--the loved--the lost--too many! yet how few!

1. 217But my Soul wanders; I demand it back
2. 218To meditate amongst decay, and stand
3. 219A ruin amidst ruins; there to track
4. 220Fall'n states and buried greatness, o'er a land
5. 221Which was the mightiest in its old command,
6. 222And is the loveliest, and must ever be
7. 223The master-mould of Nature's heavenly hand;
8. 224Wherein were cast the heroic and the free,--
9. 225The beautiful--the brave--the Lords of earth and sea,

1. 226The Commonwealth of Kings--the Men of Rome!
2. 227And even since, and now, fair Italy!
3. 228Thou art the Garden of the World, the Home
4. 229Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree;
5. 230Even in thy desert, what is like to thee?
6. 231Thy very weeds are beautiful--thy waste
7. 232More rich than other climes' fertility;
8. 233Thy wreck a glory--and thy ruin graced
9. 234With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced.

1. 235The Moon is up, and yet it is not night--
2. 236Sunset divides the sky with her--a sea
3. 237Of glory streams along the Alpine height
4. 238Of blue Friuli's mountains;Heaven is free
5. 239From clouds, but of all colours seems to be,--
6. 240Melted to one vast Iris of the West,--
7. 241Where the Day joins the past Eternity;
8. 242While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest
9. 243Floats through the azure air--an island of the blest!

1. 244A single star is at her side, and reigns
2. 245With her o'er half the lovely heaven; but still
3. 246Yon sunny Sea heaves brightly, and remains
4. 247Rolled o'er the peak of the far Rhætian hill,
5. 248As Day and Night contending were, until
6. 249Nature reclaimed her order:--gently flows
7. 250The deep-dyed Brenta,where their hues instil
8. 251The odorous purple of a new-born rose,
9. 252Which streams upon her stream, and glassed within it glows,

1. 253Filled with the face of heaven, which, from afar,
2. 254Comes down upon the waters! all its hues,
3. 255From the rich sunset to the rising star,
4. 256Their magical variety diffuse:
5. 257And now they change--a paler Shadow strews
6. 258Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting Day
7. 259Dies like the Dolphin, whom each pang imbues
8. 260With a new colour as it gasps away--
9. 261The last still loveliest, till--'tis gone--and all is gray.

1. 262There is a tomb in Arqua;--reared in air,
2. 263Pillared in their sarcophagus, repose
3. 264The bones of Laura's lover: here repair
4. 265Many familiar with his well-sung woes,
5. 266The Pilgrims of his Genius. He arose
6. 267To raise a language, and his land reclaim
7. 268From the dull yoke of her barbaric foes:
8. 269Watering the tree which bears his Lady's name
9. 270With his melodious tears, he gave himself to Fame.

1. 271They keep his dust in Arqua,where he died--
2. 272The mountain-village where his latter days
3. 273Went down the vale of years; and 'tis their pride--
4. 274An honest pride--and let it be their praise,
5. 275To offer to the passing stranger's gaze
6. 276His mansion and his sepulchre--both plain
7. 277And venerably simple--such as raise
8. 278A feeling more accordant with his strain
9. 279Than if a Pyramid formed his monumental fane.

1. 280And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt
2. 281Is one of that complexion which seems made
3. 282For those who their mortalityhave felt,
4. 283And sought a refuge from their hopes decayed
5. 284In the deep umbrage of a green hill's shade,
6. 285Which shows a distant prospect far away
7. 286Of busy cities, now in vain displayed,
8. 287For they can lure no further; and the ray
9. 288Of a bright Sun can make sufficient holiday,

1. 289Developing the mountains, leaves, and flowers,
2. 290And shining in the brawling brook, where-by,
3. 291Clear as its current, glide the sauntering hours
4. 292With a calm languor, which, though to the eye
5. 293Idlesse it seem, hath its morality--
6. 294If from society we learn to live,
7. 295'Tis Solitude should teach us how to die;
8. 296It hath no flatterers--Vanity can give
9. 297No hollow aid; alone--man with his God must strive:

1. 298Or, it may be, with Demons,who impair
2. 299The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey
3. 300In melancholy bosoms--such as were
4. 301Of moody texture from their earliest day,
5. 302And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay
6. 303Deeming themselves predestined to a doom
7. 304Which is not of the pangs that pass away;
8. 305Making the Sun like blood, the Earth a tomb,
9. 306The tomb a hell--and Hell itself a murkier gloom.

1. 307Ferrara!in thy wide and grass-grown streets,
2. 308Whose symmetry was not for solitude,
3. 309There seems as 'twere a curse upon the Seats
4. 310Of former Sovereigns, and the antique brood
5. 311Of Este,which for many an age made good
6. 312Its strength within thy walls, and was of yore
7. 313Patron or Tyrant, as the changing mood
8. 314Of petty power impelled, of those who wore
9. 315The wreath which Dante's brow alone had worn before.

1. 316And Tasso is their glory and their shame--
2. 317Hark to his strain! and then survey his cell!
3. 318And see how dearly earned Torquato's fame,
4. 319And where Alfonso bade his poet dwell:
5. 320The miserable Despot could not quell
6. 321The insulted mind he sought to quench, and blend
7. 322With the surrounding maniacs, in the hell
8. 323Where he had plunged it. Glory without end
9. 324Scattered the clouds away--and on that name attend

1. 325The tears and praises of all time, while thine
2. 326Would rot in its oblivion--in the sink
3. 327Of worthless dust, which from thy boasted line
4. 328Is shaken into nothing--but the link
5. 329Thou formest in his fortunes bids us think
6. 330Of thy poor malice, naming thee with scorn:
7. 331Alfonso! how thy ducal pageants shrink
8. 332From thee! if in another station born,
9. 333Scarce fit to be the slave of him thou mad'st to mourn:

1. 334Thou! formed to eat, and be despised, and die,
2. 335Even as the beasts that perish--save that thou
3. 336Hadst a more splendid trough and wider sty:--
4. 337He! with a glory round his furrowed brow,
5. 338Which emanated then, and dazzles now,
6. 339In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire,
7. 340And Boileau, whose rash envy could allow
8. 341No strain which shamed his country's creaking lyre,
9. 342That whetstone of the teeth--Monotony in wire!

1. 343Peace to Torquato's injured shade! 'twas his
2. 344In life and death to be the mark where Wrong
3. 345Aimed with her poisoned arrows,--but to miss.
4. 346Oh, Victor unsurpassed in modern song!
5. 347Each year brings forth its millions--but how long
6. 348The tide of Generations shall roll on,
7. 349And not the whole combined and countless throng
8. 350Compose a mind like thine? though all in one
9. 351Condensed their scattered rays--they would not form a Sun.

1. 352Great as thou art, yet paralleled by those,
2. 353Thy countrymen, before thee born to shine,
3. 354The Bards of Hell and Chivalry: first rose
4. 355The Tuscan Father's Comedy Divine;
5. 356Then, not unequal to the Florentine,
6. 357The southern Scott, the minstrel who called forth
7. 358A new creation with his magic line,
8. 359And, like the Ariosto of the North,
9. 360Sang Ladye-love and War, Romance and Knightly Worth.

1. 361The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust
2. 362The iron crown of laurel's mimicked leaves;
3. 363Nor was the ominous element unjust,
4. 364For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves
5. 365Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves,
6. 366And the false semblance but disgraced his brow;
7. 367Yet still, if fondly Superstition grieves,
8. 368Know, that the lightning sanctifies below
9. 369Whate'er it strikes;--yon head is doubly sacred now.

1. 370Italia! oh, Italia! thou who hast
2. 371The fatal gift of Beauty, which became
3. 372A funeral dower of present woes and past--
4. 373On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed by shame,
5. 374And annals graved in characters of flame.
6. 375Oh, God! that thou wert in thy nakedness
7. 376Less lovely or more powerful, and couldst claim
8. 377Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press
9. 378To shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy distress;

1. 379Then might'st thou more appal--or, less desired,
2. 380Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored
3. 381For thy destructive charms; then, still untired,
4. 382Would not be seen the arméd torrents poured
5. 383Down the deep Alps; nor would the hostile horde
6. 384Of many-nationed spoilers from the Po
7. 385Quaff blood and water; nor the stranger's sword
8. 386Be thy sad weapon of defence--and so,
9. 387Victor or vanquished, thou the slave of friend or foe.

1. 388Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him,
2. 389The Roman friend of Rome's least-mortal mind,
3. 390The friend of Tully: as my bark did skim
4. 391The bright blue waters with a fanning wind,
5. 392Came Megara before me, and behind
6. 393Ægina lay--Piræus on the right,
7. 394And Corinth on the left; I lay reclined
8. 395Along the prow, and saw all these unite
9. 396In ruin--even as he had seen the desolate sight;

1. 397For Time hath not rebuilt them, but upreared
2. 398Barbaric dwellings on their shattered site,
3. 399Which only make more mourned and more endeared
4. 400The few last rays of their far-scattered light,
5. 401And the crashed relics of their vanished might.
6. 402The Roman saw these tombs in his own age,
7. 403These sepulchres of cities, which excite
8. 404Sad wonder, and his yet surviving page
9. 405The moral lesson bears, drawn from such pilgrimage.

1. 406That page is now before me, and on mine
2. 407His Country's ruin added to the mass
3. 408Of perished states he mourned in their decline,
4. 409And I in desolation: all that was
5. 410Of then destruction is; and now, alas!
6. 411Rome--Rome imperial, bows her to the storm,
7. 412In the same dust and blackness, and we pass
8. 413The skeleton of her Titanic form,
9. 414Wrecks of another world, whose ashes still are warm.

1. 415Yet, Italy! through every other land
2. 416Thy wrongs should ring--and shall--from side to side;
3. 417Mother of Arts! as once of Arms! thy hand
4. 418Was then our Guardian, and is still our Guide;
5. 419Parent of our Religion! whom the wide
6. 420Nations have knelt to for the keys of Heaven!
7. 421Europe, repentant of her parricide,
8. 422Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven,
9. 423Roll the barbarian tide, and sue to be forgiven.

1. 424But Arno wins us to the fair white walls,
2. 425Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps
3. 426A softer feeling for her fairy halls:
4. 427Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps
5. 428Her corn, and wine, and oil--and Plenty leaps
6. 429To laughing life, with her redundant Horn.
7. 430Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps
8. 431Was modern Luxury of Commerce born,
9. 432And buried Learning rose, redeemed to a new Morn.

1. 433There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills
2. 434The air around with Beauty--we inhale
3. 435The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils
4. 436Part of its immortality--the veil
5. 437Of heaven is half undrawn--within the pale
6. 438We stand, and in that form and face behold
7. 439What Mind can make, when Nature's self would fail;
8. 440And to the fond Idolaters of old
9. 441Envy the innate flash which such a Soul could mould:

1. 442We gaze and turn away, and know not where,
2. 443Dazzled and drunk with Beauty,till the heart
3. 444Reels with its fulness; there--for ever there--
4. 445Chained to the chariot of triumphal Art,
5. 446We stand as captives, and would not depart.
6. 447Away!--there need no words, nor terms precise,
7. 448The paltry jargon of the marble mart,
8. 449Where Pedantry gulls Folly--we have eyes:
9. 450Blood--pulse--and breast confirm the Dardan Shepherd's prize.

1. 451Appear'dst thou not to Paris in this guise?
2. 452Or to more deeply blest Anchises? or,
3. 453In all thy perfect Goddess-ship, when lies
4. 454Before thee thy own vanquished Lord of War?
5. 455And gazing in thy face as toward a star,
6. 456Laid on thy lap, his eyes to thee upturn,
7. 457Feeding on thy sweet cheek!while thy lips are
8. 458With lava kisses melting while they burn,
9. 459Showered on his eyelids, brow, and mouth, as from an urn!

1. 460Glowing, and circumfused in speechless love--
2. 461Their full divinity inadequate
3. 462That feeling to express, or to improve--
4. 463The Gods become as mortals--and man's fate
5. 464Has moments like their brightest; but the weight
6. 465Of earth recoils upon us;--let it go!
7. 466We can recall such visions, and create,
8. 467From what has been, or might be, things which grow
9. 468Into thy statue's form, and look like gods below.

1. 469I leave to learnéd fingers, and wise hands,
2. 470The Artist and his Ape, to teach and tell
3. 471How well his Connoisseurship understands
4. 472The graceful bend, and the voluptuous swell:
5. 473Let these describe the undescribable:
6. 474I would not their vile breath should crisp the stream
7. 475Wherein that Image shall for ever dwell--
8. 476The unruffled mirror of the loveliest dream
9. 477That ever left the sky on the deep soul to beam.

1. 478In Santa Croce'sholy precincts lie
2. 479Ashes which make it holier, dust which is
3. 480Even in itself an immortality,
4. 481Though there were nothing save the past, and this,
5. 482The particle of those sublimities
6. 483Which have relapsed to chaos:--here repose
7. 484Angelo's--Alfieri'sbones--and his,
8. 485The starry Galileo, with his woes;
9. 486Here Machiavelli's earth returned to whence it rose.

1. 487These are four minds, which, like the elements,
2. 488Might furnish forth creation:--Italy!
3. 489Time, which hath wronged thee with ten thousand rents
4. 490Of thine imperial garment, shall deny
5. 491And hath denied, to every other sky,
6. 492Spirits which soar from ruin:--thy Decay
7. 493Is still impregnate with divinity,
8. 494Which gilds it with revivifying ray;
9. 495Such as the great of yore, Canovais to-day.

1. 496But where repose the all Etruscan three--
2. 497Dante, and Petrarch, and, scarce less than they,
3. 498The Bard of Prose, creative Spirit! he
4. 499Of the Hundred Tales of Love--where did they lay
5. 500Their bones, distinguished from our common clay
6. 501In death as life? Are they resolved to dust,
7. 502And have their Country's Marbles nought to say?
8. 503Could not her quarries furnish forth one bust?
9. 504Did they not to her breast their filial earth entrust?

1. 505Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar,
2. 506Like Scipio buried by the upbraiding shore:
3. 507Thy factions, in their worse than civil war,
4. 508Proscribed the Bard whose name for evermore
5. 509Their children's children would in vain adore
6. 510With the remorse of ages; and the crown
7. 511Which Petrarch's laureate brow supremely wore,
8. 512Upon a far and foreign soil had grown,
9. 513His Life, his Fame, his Grave, though rifled--not thine own.

1. 514Boccaccioto his parent earth bequeathed
2. 515His dust,--and lies it not her Great among,
3. 516With many a sweet and solemn requiem breathed
4. 517O'er him who formed the Tuscan's siren tongue?
5. 518That music in itself, whose sounds are song,
6. 519The poetry of speech? No;--even his tomb
7. 520Uptorn, must bear the hyæna bigot's wrong,
8. 521No more amidst the meaner dead find room,
9. 522Nor claim a passing sigh, because it told for whom!

1. 523And Santa Croce wants their mighty dust;
2. 524Yet for this want more noted, as of yore
3. 525The Cæsar's pageant,shorn of Brutus' bust,
4. 526Did but of Rome's best Son remind her more:
5. 527Happier Ravenna! on thy hoary shore,
6. 528Fortress of falling Empire! honoured sleeps
7. 529The immortal Exile;--Arqua, too, her store
8. 530Of tuneful relics proudly claims and keeps,
9. 531While Florence vainly begs her banished dead and weeps.

1. 532What is her Pyramid of precious stones?
2. 533Of porphyry, jasper, agate, and all hues
3. 534Of gem and marble, to encrust the bones
4. 535Of merchant-dukes?the momentary dews
5. 536Which, sparkling to the twilight stars, infuse
6. 537Freshness in the green turf that wraps the dead,
7. 538Whose names are Mausoleums of the Muse,
8. 539Are gently prest with far more reverent tread
9. 540Than ever paced the slab which paves the princely head.

1. 541There be more things to greet the heart and eyes
2. 542In Arno's dome of Art's most princely shrine,
3. 543Where Sculpture with her rainbow Sister vies;
4. 544There be more marvels yet--but not for mine;
5. 545For I have been accustomed to entwine
6. 546My thoughts with Nature rather in the fields,
7. 547Than Art in galleries: though a work divine
8. 548Calls for my Spirit's homage, yet it yields
9. 549Less than it feels, because the weapon which it wields

1. 550Is of another temper, and I roam
2. 551By Thrasimene's lake,in the defiles
3. 552Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home;
4. 553For there the Carthaginian's warlike wiles
5. 554Come back before me, as his skill beguiles
6. 555The host between the mountains and the shore,
7. 556Where Courage falls in her despairing files,
8. 557And torrents, swoll'n to rivers with their gore,
9. 558Reek through the sultry plain, with legions scattered o'er.

1. 559Like to a forest felled by mountain winds;
2. 560And such the storm of battle on this day,
3. 561And such the frenzy, whose convulsion blinds
4. 562To all save Carnage, that, beneath the fray,
5. 563An Earthquakereeled unheededly away!
6. 564None felt stern Nature rocking at his feet,
7. 565And yawning forth a grave for those who lay
8. 566Upon their bucklers for a winding sheet--
9. 567Such is the absorbing hate when warring nations meet!

1. 568The Earth to them was as a rolling bark
2. 569Which bore them to Eternity--they saw
3. 570The Ocean round, but had no time to mark
4. 571The motions of their vessel; Nature's law,
5. 572In them suspended, recked not of the awe
6. 573Which reigns when mountains tremble, and the birds
7. 574Plunge in the clouds for refuge, and withdraw
8. 575From their down-toppling nests; and bellowing herds
9. 576Stumble o'er heaving plains--and Man's dread hath no words.

1. 577Far other scene is Thrasimene now;
2. 578Her lake a sheet of silver, and her plain
3. 579Rent by no ravage save the gentle plough;
4. 580Her agéd trees rise thick as once the slain
5. 581Lay where their roots are; but a brook hath ta'en--
6. 582A little rill of scanty stream and bed--
7. 583A name of blood from that day's sanguine rain;
8. 584And Sanguinetto tells ye where the dead
9. 585Made the earth wet, and turned the unwilling waters red.

1. 586But thou, Clitumnus! in thy sweetest wave
2. 587Of the most living crystal that was e'er
3. 588The haunt of river-Nymph, to gaze and lave
4. 589Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear
5. 590Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-white steer
6. 591Grazes--the purest God of gentle waters!
7. 592And most serene of aspect, and most clear;
8. 593Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughters--
9. 594A mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daughters!

1. 595And on thy happy shore a Templestill,
2. 596Of small and delicate proportion, keeps
3. 597Upon a mild declivity of hill,
4. 598Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps
5. 599Thy current's calmness; oft from out it leaps
6. 600The finny darter with the glittering scales,
7. 601Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps;
8. 602While, chance, some scattered water-lily sails
9. 603Down where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling tales.

1. 604Pass not unblest the Genius of the place!
2. 605If through the air a Zephyr more serene
3. 606Win to the brow, 'tis his; and if ye trace
4. 607Along his margin a more eloquent green,
5. 608If on the heart the freshness of the scene
6. 609Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust
7. 610Of weary life a moment lave it clean
8. 611With Nature's baptism,--'tis to him ye must
9. 612Pay orisons for this suspension of disgust.

1. 613The roar of waters!--from the headlong height
2. 614Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice;
3. 615The fall of waters! rapid as the light
4. 616The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss;
5. 617The Hell of Waters! where they howl and hiss,
6. 618And boil in endless torture; while the sweat
7. 619Of their great agony, wrung out from this
8. 620Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet
9. 621That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set,

1. 622And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again
2. 623Returns in an unceasing shower, which round,
3. 624With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain,
4. 625Is an eternal April to the ground,
5. 626Making it all one emerald:--how profound
6. 627The gulf! and how the Giant Element
7. 628From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound,
8. 629Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent
9. 630With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful vent

1. 631To the broad column which rolls on, and shows
2. 632More like the fountain of an infant sea
3. 633Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes
4. 634Of a new world, than only thus to be
5. 635Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly,
6. 636With many windings, through the vale:--Look back!
7. 637Lo! where it comes like an Eternity,
8. 638As if to sweep down all things in its track,
9. 639Charming the eye with dread,--a matchless cataract.

1. 640Horribly beautiful! but on the verge,
2. 641From side to side, beneath the glittering morn,
3. 642An Irissits, amidst the infernal surge,
4. 643Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworn
5. 644Its steady dyes, while all around is torn
6. 645By the distracted waters, bears serene
7. 646Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn:
8. 647Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene,
9. 648Love watching Madness with unalterable mien.

1. 649Once more upon the woody Apennine--
2. 650The infant Alps, which--had I not before
3. 651Gazed on their mightier Parents, where the pine
4. 652Sits on more shaggy summits, and where roar
5. 653The thundering Lauwine--might be worshipped more;
6. 654But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau rear
7. 655Her never-trodden snow, and seen the hoar
8. 656Glaciers of bleak Mont Blanc both far and near--
9. 657And in Chimari heard the Thunder-Hills of fear,

1. 658Th' Acroceraunian mountains of old name;
2. 659And on Parnassus seen the Eagles fly
3. 660Like Spirits of the spot, as 'twere for fame.
4. 661For still they soared unutterably high:
5. 662I've looked on Ida with a Trojan's eye;
6. 663Athos--Olympus--Ætna.--Atlas--made
7. 664These hills seem things of lesser dignity;
8. 665All, save the lone Soracte's height, displayed
9. 666Not now in snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid

1. 667For our remembrance, and from out the plain
2. 668Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break,
3. 669And on the curl hangs pausing: not in vain
4. 670May he, who will, his recollections rake,
5. 671And quote in classic raptures, and awake
6. 672The hills with Latian echoes--I abhorred
7. 673Too much, to conquer for the Poet's sake,
8. 674The drilled dull lesson, forced down word by word
9. 675In my repugnant youth,with pleasure to record

1. 676Aught that recalls the daily drug which turned
2. 677My sickening memory; and, though Time hath taught
3. 678My mind to meditate what then it learned,
4. 679Yet such the fixed inveteracy wrought
5. 680By the impatience of my early thought,
6. 681That, with the freshness wearing out before
7. 682My mind could relish what it might have sought,
8. 683If free to choose, I cannot now restore
9. 684Its health--but what it then detested, still abhor.

1. 685Then farewell, Horace--whom I hated so,
2. 686Not for thy faults, but mine: it is a curse
3. 687To understand, not feel thy lyric flow,
4. 688To comprehend, but never love thy verse;
5. 689Although no deeper Moralist rehearse
6. 690Our little life, nor Bard prescribe his art,
7. 691Nor livelier Satirist the conscience pierce,
8. 692Awakening without wounding the touched heart,
9. 693Yet fare thee well--upon Soracte's ridge we part.

1. 694Oh, Rome! my Country! City of the Soul!
2. 695The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,
3. 696Lone Mother of dead Empires! and control
4. 697In their shut breasts their petty misery.
5. 698What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see
6. 699The cypress--hear the owl--and plod your way
7. 700O'er steps of broken thrones and temples--Ye!
8. 701Whose agonies are evils of a day--
9. 702A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay.

1. 703The Niobe of nations! there she stands,
2. 704Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe;
3. 705empty urn within her withered hands,
4. 706Whose holy dust was scattered long ago;
5. 707The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now;
6. 708The very sepulchres lie tenantless
7. 709Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow,
8. 710Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness?
9. 711Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress.

1. 712The Goth, the Christian--Time--War--Flood, and Fire,
2. 713Have dealt upon the seven-hilled City's pride;
3. 714She saw her glories star by star expire,
4. 715And up the steep barbarian Monarchs ride,
5. 716Where the car climbed the Capitol;far and wide
6. 717Temple and tower went down, nor left a site:
7. 718Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void,
8. 719O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light,
9. 720And say, "here was, or is," where all is doubly night?

1. 721The double night of ages, and of her,
2. 722Night's daughter, Ignorance,hath wrapt and wrap
3. 723All round us; we but feel our way to err:
4. 724The Ocean hath his chart, the Stars their map,
5. 725And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap;
6. 726But Rome is as the desert--where we steer
7. 727Stumbling o'er recollections; now we clap
8. 728Our hands, and cry "Eureka!" "it is clear"--
9. 729When but some false Mirage of ruin rises near.

1. 730Alas! the lofty city! and alas!
2. 731The trebly hundred triumphs!and the day
3. 732When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass
4. 733The Conqueror's sword in bearing fame away!
5. 734Alas, for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay,
6. 735And Livy's pictured page!--but these shall be
7. 736Her resurrection; all beside--decay.
8. 737Alas, for Earth, for never shall we see
9. 738That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was free!

1. 739Oh, thou, whose chariot rolled on Fortune's wheel,
2. 740Triumphant Sylla!Thou, who didst subdue
3. 741Thy country's foes ere thou wouldst pause to feel
4. 742The wrath of thy own wrongs, or reap the due
5. 743Of hoarded vengeance till thine Eagles flew
6. 744O'er prostrate Asia;--thou, who with thy frown
7. 745Annihilated senates;--Roman, too,
8. 746With all thy vices--for thou didst lay down
9. 747With an atoning smile a more than earthly crown,

1. 748Thy dictatorial wreath--couldst thou divine
2. 749To what would one day dwindle that which made
3. 750Thee more than mortal? and that so supine
4. 751By aught than Romans Rome should thus be laid?
5. 752She who was named Eternal, and arrayed
6. 753Her warriors but to conquer--she who veiled
7. 754Earth with her haughty shadow, and displayed,
8. 755Until the o'er-canopied horizon failed,
9. 756Her rushing wings--Oh! she who was Almighty hailed!

1. 757Sylla was first of victors; but our own,
2. 758The sagest of usurpers, Cromwell!--he
3. 759Too swept off senates while he hewed the throne
4. 760Down to a block--immortal rebel! See
5. 761What crimes it costs to be a moment free,
6. 762And famous through all ages! but beneath
7. 763His fate the moral lurks of destiny;
8. 764His day of double victory and death
9. 765Beheld him win two realms, and, happier, yield his breath.

1. 766The third of the same Moon whose former course
2. 767Had all but crowned him, on the selfsame day
3. 768Deposed him gently from his throne of force,
4. 769And laid him with the Earth's preceding clay.
5. 770And showed not Fortune thus how fame and sway,
6. 771And all we deem delightful, and consume
7. 772Our souls to compass through each arduous way,
8. 773Are in her eyes less happy than the tomb?
9. 774Were they but so in Man's, how different were his doom!

1. 775And thou, dread Statue!yet existent in
2. 776The austerest form of naked majesty--
3. 777Thou who beheldest, 'mid the assassins' din,
4. 778At thy bathed base the bloody Cæsar lie,
5. 779Folding his robe in dying dignity--
6. 780An offering to thine altar from the Queen
7. 781Of gods and men, great Nemesis! did he die,
8. 782And thou, too, perish, Pompey? have ye been
9. 783Victors of countless kings, or puppets of a scene?

1. 784And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome!
2. 785She-wolf! whose brazen-imaged dugs impart
3. 786The milk of conquest yet within the dome
4. 787Where, as a monument of antique art,
5. 788Thou standest:--Mother of the mighty heart,
6. 789Which the great Founder sucked from thy wild teat,
7. 790Scorched by the Roman Jove's ethereal dart,
8. 791And thy limbs black with lightning--dost thou yet
9. 792Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget?

1. 793Thou dost;--but all thy foster-babes are dead--
2. 794The men of iron; and the World hath reared
3. 795Cities from out their sepulchres: men bled
4. 796In imitation of the thingsthey feared,
5. 797And fought and conquered, and the same course steered,
6. 798At apish distance; but as yet none have,
7. 799Nor could, the same supremacy have neared,
8. 800Save one vain Man, who is not in the grave--
9. 801But, vanquished by himself, to his own slaves a slave--.

1. 802The fool of false dominion--and a kind
2. 803Of bastard Cæsar, following him of old
3. 804With steps unequal; for the Roman's mind
4. 805Was modelled in a less terrestrial mould,
5. 806With passions fiercer, yet a judgment cold,
6. 807And an immortal instinct which redeemed
7. 808The frailties of a heart so soft, yet bold--
8. 809Alcides with the distaff now he seemed
9. 810At Cleopatra's feet,--and now himself he beamed,

1. 811And came--and saw--and conquered!But the man
2. 812Who would have tamed his Eagles down to flee,
3. 813Like a trained falcon, in the Gallic van,
4. 814Which he, in sooth, long led to Victory,
5. 815With a deaf heart which never seemed to be
6. 816A listener to itself, was strangely framed;
7. 817With but one weakest weakness--Vanity--
8. 818Coquettish in ambition--still he aimed--
9. 819And what? can he avouch, or answer what he claimed?

1. 820And would be all or nothing--nor could wait
2. 821For the sure grave to level him; few years
3. 822Had fixed him with the Cæsars in his fate
4. 823On whom we tread: For this the conqueror rears
5. 824The Arch of Triumph! and for this the tears
6. 825And blood of earth flow on as they have flowed,
7. 826An universal Deluge, which appears
8. 827Without an Ark for wretched Man's abode,
9. 828And ebbs but to reflow!--Renew thy rainbow, God!

1. 829What from this barren being do we reap?
2. 830Our senses narrow, and our reason frail,
3. 831Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep,
4. 832And all things weighed in Custom's falsest scale;
5. 833Opinion an Omnipotence,--whose veil
6. 834Mantles the earth with darkness, until right
7. 835And wrong are accidents, and Men grow pale
8. 836Lest their own judgments should become too bright,
9. 837And their free thoughts be crimes, and Earth have too much light.

1. 838And thus they plod in sluggish misery,
2. 839Rotting from sire to son, and age to age,
3. 840Proud of their trampled nature, and so die,
4. 841Bequeathing their hereditary rage
5. 842To the new race of inborn slaves, who wage
6. 843War for their chains, and rather than be free,
7. 844Bleed gladiator-like, and still engage
8. 845Within the same Arena where they see
9. 846Their fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree.

1. 847I speak not of men's creeds--they rest between
2. 848Man and his Maker--but of things allowed,
3. 849Averred, and known, and daily, hourly seen--
4. 850The yoke that is upon us doubly bowed,
5. 851And the intent of Tyranny avowed,
6. 852The edict of Earth's rulers, who are grown
7. 853The apes of him who humbled once the proud,
8. 854And shook them from their slumbers on the throne;
9. 855Too glorious, were this all his mighty arm had done.

1. 856Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be,
2. 857And Freedom find no Champion and no Child
3. 858Such as Columbia saw arise when she
4. 859Sprung forth a Pallas, armed and undefined?
5. 860Or must such minds be nourished in the wild,
6. 861Deep in the unpruned forest, 'midst the roar
7. 862Of cataracts, where nursing Nature smiled
8. 863On infant Washington? Has Earth no more
9. 864Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no such shore?

1. 865But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime;
2. 866And fatal have her Saturnalia been
3. 867To Freedom's cause, in every age and clime;
4. 868Because the deadly days which we have seen,
5. 869And vile Ambition, that built up between
6. 870Man and his hopes an adamantine wall,
7. 871And the base pageantlast upon the scene,
8. 872Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrall
9. 873Which nips Life's tree, and dooms Man's worst--his second fall.

1. 874Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying,
2. 875Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind;
3. 876Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying,
4. 877The loudest still the Tempest leaves behind;
5. 878Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind,
6. 879Chopped by the axe, looks rough and little worth,
7. 880But the sap lasts,--and still the seed we find
8. 881Sown deep, even in the bosom of the North;
9. 882So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth.

1. 883There is a stern round tower of other days
2. 884Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone,
3. 885Such as an army's baffled strength delays,
4. 886Standing with half its battlements alone,
5. 887And with two thousand years of ivy grown,
6. 888The garland of Eternity, where wave
7. 889The green leaves over all by Time o'erthrown;--
8. 890What was this tower of strength? within its cave
9. 891What treasure lay so locked, so hid?--A woman's grave.

1. 892But who was she, the Lady of the dead,
2. 893Tombed in a palace? Was she chaste and fair?
3. 894Worthy a king's--or more--a Roman's bed?
4. 895What race of Chiefs and Heroes did she bear?
5. 896What daughter of her beauties was the heir?
6. 897How lived--how loved--how died she? Was she not
7. 898So honoured--and conspicuously there,
8. 899Where meaner relics must not dare to rot,
9. 900Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot?

1. 901Was she as those who love their lords, or they
2. 902Who love the lords of others? such have been
3. 903Even in the olden time, Rome's annals say.
4. 904Was she a matron of Cornelia's mien,
5. 905Or the light air of Egypt's graceful Queen,
6. 906Profuse of joy--or 'gainst it did she war,
7. 907Inveterate in virtue? Did she lean
8. 908To the soft side of the heart, or wisely bar
9. 909Love from amongst her griefs?--for such the affections are.

1. 910Perchance she died in youth--it may be, bowed
2. 911With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb
3. 912That weighed upon her gentle dust: a cloud
4. 913Might gather o'er her beauty, and a gloom
5. 914In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom
6. 915Heaven gives its favourites--early death--yet shed
7. 916A sunset charm around her, and illume
8. 917With hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead,
9. 918Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaf-like red.

1. 919Perchance she died in age--surviving all,
2. 920Charms--kindred--children--with the silver gray
3. 921On her long tresses, which might yet recall,
4. 922It may be, still a something of the day
5. 923When they were braided, and her proud array
6. 924And lovely form were envied, praised, and eyed
7. 925By Rome--But whither would Conjecture stray?
8. 926Thus much alone we know--Metella died,
9. 927The wealthiest Roman's wife: Behold his love or pride!

1. 928I know not why--but standing thus by thee
2. 929It seems as if I had thine inmate known,
3. 930Thou Tomb! and other days come back on me
4. 931With recollected music, though the tone
5. 932Is changed and solemn, like the cloudy groan
6. 933Of dying thunder on the distant wind;
7. 934Yet could I seat me by this ivied stone
8. 935Till I had bodied forth the heated mind
9. 936Forms from the floating wreck which Ruin leaves behind:

1. 937And from the planks, far shattered o'er the rocks,
2. 938Built me a little bark of hope, once more
3. 939To battle with the Ocean and the shocks
4. 940Of the loud breakers, and the ceaseless roar
5. 941Which rushes on the solitary shore
6. 942Where all lies foundered that was ever dear:
7. 943But could I gather from the wave-worn store
8. 944Enough for my rude boat, where should I steer?
9. 945There woos no home, nor hope, nor life, save what is here.

1. 946Then let the Winds howl on! their harmony
2. 947Shall henceforth be my music, and the Night
3. 948The sound shall temper with the owlets' cry,
4. 949As I now hear them, in the fading light
5. 950Dim o'er the bird of darkness' native site,
6. 951Answering each other on the Palatine,
7. 952With their large eyes, all glistening gray and bright,
8. 953And sailing pinions.--Upon such a shrine
9. 954What are our petty griefs?--let me not number mine.

1. 955Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grown
2. 956Matted and massed together--hillocks heaped
3. 957On what were chambers--arch crushed, column strown
4. 958In fragments--choked up vaults, and frescos steeped
5. 959In subterranean damps, where the owl peeped,
6. 960Deeming it midnight:--Temples--Baths--or Halls?
7. 961Pronounce who can: for all that Learning reaped
8. 962From her research hath been, that these are walls--
9. 963Behold the Imperial Mount! 'tis thus the Mighty falls.

1. 964There is the moral of all human tales;
2. 965'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past,
3. 966First Freedom, and then Glory--when that fails,
4. 967Wealth--Vice--Corruption,--Barbarism at last.
5. 968And History, with all her volumes vast,
6. 969Hath but one page,--'tis better written here,
7. 970Where gorgeous Tyranny hath thus amassed
8. 971All treasures, all delights, that Eye or Ear,
9. 972Heart, Soul could seek--Tongue ask--Away with words! draw near,

1. 973Admire--exult--despise--laugh--weep,--for here
2. 974There is such matter for all feeling:--Man!
3. 975Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear,
4. 976Ages and Realms are crowded in this span,
5. 977This mountain, whose obliterated plan
6. 978The pyramid of Empires pinnacled,
7. 979Of Glory's gewgaws shining in the van
8. 980Till the Sun's rays with added flame were filled!
9. 981Where are its golden roofs?where those who dared to build?

1. 982Tully was not so eloquent as thou,
2. 983Thou nameless columnwith the buried base!
3. 984What are the laurels of the Cæsar's brow?
4. 985Crown me with ivy from his dwelling-place.
5. 986Whose arch or pillar meets me in the face,
6. 987Titus or Trajan's? No--'tis that of Time:
7. 988Triumph, arch, pillar, all he doth displace
8. 989Scoffing; and apostolic statuesclimb
9. 990To crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime,

1. 991Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome,
2. 992And looking to the stars: they had contained
3. 993A Spirit which with these would find a home,
4. 994The last of those who o'er the whole earth reigned,
5. 995The Roman Globe--for, after, none sustained,
6. 996But yielded back his conquests:--he was more
7. 997Than a mere Alexander, and, unstained
8. 998With household blood and wine, serenely wore
9. 999His sovereign virtues--still we Trajan'sname adore.

1. 1000Where is the rock of Triumph,the high place
2. 1001Where Rome embraced her heroes?--where the steep
3. 1002Tarpeian?--fittest goal of Treason's race,
4. 1003The Promontory whence the Traitor's Leap
5. 1004Cured all ambition?Did the conquerors heap
6. 1005Their spoils here? Yes; and in yon field below,
7. 1006A thousand years of silenced factions sleep--
8. 1007The Forum, where the immortal accents glow,
9. 1008And still the eloquent air breathes-burns with Cicero!

1. 1009The field of Freedom--Faction--Fame--and Blood:
2. 1010Here a proud people's passions were exhaled,
3. 1011From the first hour of Empire in the bud
4. 1012To that when further worlds to conquer failed;
5. 1013But long before had Freedom's face been veiled,
6. 1014And Anarchy assumed her attributes;
7. 1015Till every lawless soldier who assailed
8. 1016Trod on the trembling Senate's slavish mutes,
9. 1017Or raised the venal voice of baser prostitutes.

1. 1018Then turn we to her latest Tribune's name,
2. 1019From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee,
3. 1020Redeemer of dark centuries of shame--
4. 1021The friend of Petrarch--hope of Italy--
5. 1022Rienzi! last of Romans!While the tree
6. 1023Of Freedom's withered trunk puts forth a leaf,
7. 1024Even for thy tomb a garland let it be--
8. 1025The Forum's champion, and the people's chief--
9. 1026Her new-born Numa thou--with reign, alas! too brief.

1. 1027Egeria! sweet creation of some heart
2. 1028Which found no mortal resting-place so fair
3. 1029As thine ideal breast; whate'er thou art
4. 1030Or wert,--a young Aurora of the air,
5. 1031The nympholepsyof some fond despair--
6. 1032Or--it might be--a Beauty of the earth,
7. 1033Who found a more than common Votary there
8. 1034Too much adoring--whatsoe'er thy birth,
9. 1035Thou wert a beautiful Thought, and softly bodied forth.

1. 1036The mosses of thy Fountainstill are sprinkled
2. 1037With thine Elysian water-drops; the face
3. 1038Of thy cave-guarded Spring, with years unwrinkled,
4. 1039Reflects the meek-eyed Genius of the place,
5. 1040Whose green, wild margin now no more erase
6. 1041Art's works; nor must the delicate waters sleep
7. 1042Prisoned in marble--bubbling from the base
8. 1043Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap
9. 1044The rill runs o'er--and round, fern, flowers, and ivy, creep

1. 1045Fantastically tangled: the green hills
2. 1046Are clothed with early blossoms--through the grass
3. 1047The quick-eyed lizard rustles--and the bills
4. 1048Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass;
5. 1049Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class,
6. 1050Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes
7. 1051Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass;
8. 1052The sweetness of the Violet's deep blue eyes,
9. 1053Kissed by the breath of heaven, seems coloured by its skies.

1. 1054Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover,
2. 1055Egeria! thy all heavenly bosom beating
3. 1056For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover;
4. 1057The purple Midnight veiled that mystic meeting
5. 1058With her most starry canopy--and seating
6. 1059Thyself by thine adorer, what befel?
7. 1060This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting
8. 1061Of an enamoured Goddess, and the cell
9. 1062Haunted by holy Love--the earliest Oracle!

1. 1063And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying,
2. 1064Blend a celestial with a human heart;
3. 1065And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing,
4. 1066Share with immortal transports? could thine art
5. 1067Make them indeed immortal, and impart
6. 1068The purity of Heaven to earthly joys,
7. 1069Expel the venom and not blunt the dart--
8. 1070The dull satiety which all destroys--
9. 1071And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys?

1. 1072Alas! our young affections run to waste,
2. 1073Or water but the desert! whence arise
3. 1074But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste,
4. 1075Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes
5. 1076Flowers whose wild odours breathe but agonies,
6. 1077And trees whose gums are poison; such the plants
7. 1078Which spring beneath her steps as Passion flies
8. 1079O'er the World's wilderness, and vainly pants
9. 1080For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants.

1. 1081Oh, Love! no habitant of earth thou art--
2. 1082An unseen Seraph, we believe in thee,--
3. 1083A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart,--
4. 1084But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see
5. 1085The naked eye, thy form, as it should be;
6. 1086The mind hath made thee, as it peopled Heaven,
7. 1087Even with its own desiring phantasy,
8. 1088And to a thought such shape and image given,
9. 1089As haunts the unquenched soul--parched--wearied--wrung--and riven.

1. 1090Of its own beauty is the mind diseased,
2. 1091And fevers into false creation:--where,
3. 1092Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized?
4. 1093In him alone. Can Nature show so fair?
5. 1094Where are the charms and virtues which we dare
6. 1095Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men,
7. 1096The unreached Paradise of our despair,
8. 1097Which o'er-informsthe pencil and the pen,
9. 1098And overpowers the page where it would bloom again?

1. 1099Who loves, raves--'tis youth's frenzy--but the cure
2. 1100Is bitterer still, as charm by charm unwinds
3. 1101Which robed our idols, and we see too sure
4. 1102Nor Worth nor Beauty dwells from out the mind's
5. 1103Ideal shape of such; yet still it binds
6. 1104The fatal spell, and still it draws us on,
7. 1105Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds;
8. 1106The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun,
9. 1107Seems ever near the prize--wealthiest when most undone.

1. 1108We wither from our youth, we gasp away--
2. 1109Sick--sick; unfound the boon--unslaked the thirst,
3. 1110Though to the last, in verge of our decay,
4. 1111Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first--
5. 1112But all too late,--so are we doubly curst.
6. 1113Love, Fame, Ambition, Avarice--'tis the same,
7. 1114Each idle--and all ill--and none the worst--
8. 1115For all are meteors with a different name,
9. 1116And Death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame.

1. 1117Few--none--find what they love or could have loved,
2. 1118Though accident, blind contact, and the strong
3. 1119Necessity of loving, have removed
4. 1120Antipathies--but to recur, ere long,
5. 1121Envenomed with irrevocable wrong;
6. 1122And Circumstance, that unspiritual God
7. 1123And Miscreator, makes and helps along
8. 1124Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod,
9. 1125Whose touch turns Hope to dust,--the dust we all have trod.

1. 1126Our life is a false nature--'tis not in
2. 1127The harmony of things,--this hard decree,
3. 1128This uneradicable taint of Sin,
4. 1129This boundless Upas, this all-blasting tree,
5. 1130Whose root is Earth--whose leaves and branches be
6. 1131The skies which rain their plagues on men like dew--
7. 1132Disease, death, bondage--all the woes we see,
8. 1133And worse, the woes we see not--which throb through
9. 1134The immedicable soul,with heart-aches ever new.

1. 1135Yet let us ponder boldly--'tis a base
2. 1136Abandonment of reasonto resign
3. 1137Our right of thought--our last and only place
4. 1138Of refuge; this, at least, shall still be mine:
5. 1139Though from our birth the Faculty divine
6. 1140Is chained and tortured--cabined, cribbed, confined,
7. 1141And bred in darkness,lest the Truth should shine
8. 1142Too brightly on the unpreparéd mind,
9. 1143The beam pours in--for Time and Skill will couch the blind.

1. 1144Arches on arches!as it were that Rome,
2. 1145Collecting the chief trophies of her line,
3. 1146Would build up all her triumphs in one dome,
4. 1147Her Coliseum stands;the moonbeams shine
5. 1148As 'twere its natural torches--for divine
6. 1149Should be the light which streams here,--to illume
7. 1150This long-explored but still exhaustless mine
8. 1151Of Contemplation; and the azure gloom
9. 1152Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume

1. 1153Hues which have words, and speak to ye of Heaven,
2. 1154Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument,
3. 1155And shadows forth its glory. There is given
4. 1156Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent,
5. 1157A Spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant
6. 1158His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power
7. 1159And magic in the ruined battlement,
8. 1160For which the Palace of the present hour
9. 1161Must yield its pomp, and wait till Ages are its dower.

1. 1162Oh, Time! the Beautifier of the dead,
2. 1163Adorner of the ruin--Comforter
3. 1164And only Healer when the heart hath bled;
4. 1165Time! the Corrector where our judgments err,
5. 1166The test of Truth, Love--sole philosopher,
6. 1167For all beside are sophists--from thy thrift,
7. 1168Which never loses though it doth defer--
8. 1169Time, the Avenger! unto thee I lift
9. 1170My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift:

1. 1171Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine
2. 1172And temple more divinely desolate--
3. 1173Among thy mightier offerings here are mine,
4. 1174Ruins of years--though few, yet full of fate:--
5. 1175If thou hast ever seen me too elate,
6. 1176Hear me not; but if calmly I have borne
7. 1177Good, and reserved my pride against the hate
8. 1178Which shall not whelm me, let me not have worn
9. 1179This iron in my soul in vain--shall they not mourn?

1. 1180And Thou, who never yet of human wrong
2. 1181Left the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis!
3. 1182Here, where the ancient paid thee homage long--
4. 1183Thou, who didst call the Furies from the abyss,
5. 1184And round Orestes bade them howl and hiss
6. 1185For that unnatural retribution--just,
7. 1186Had it but been from hands less near--in this
8. 1187Thy former realm, I call thee from the dust!
9. 1188Dost thou not hear my heart?--Awake! thou shalt, and must.

1. 1189It is not that I may not have incurred,
2. 1190For my ancestral faults or mine, the wound
3. 1191I bleed withal; and, had it been conferred
4. 1192With a just weapon, it had flowed unbound;
5. 1193But now my blood shall not sink in the ground--
6. 1194To thee I do devote it--Thou shalt take
7. 1195The vengeance, which shall yet be sought and found--
8. 1196Which if I have not taken for the sake--
9. 1197But let that pass--I sleep--but Thou shalt yet awake.

1. 1198And if my voice break forth, 'tis not that now
2. 1199I shrink from what is suffered: let him speak
3. 1200Who hath beheld decline upon my brow,
4. 1201Or seen my mind's convulsion leave it weak;
5. 1202But in this page a record will I seek.
6. 1203Not in the air shall these my words disperse,
7. 1204Though I be ashes; a far hour shall wreak
8. 1205The deep prophetic fulness of this verse,
9. 1206And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse!

1. 1207That curse shall be Forgiveness.--Have I not--
2. 1208Hear me, my mother Earth! behold it, Heaven!--
3. 1209Have I not had to wrestle with my lot?
4. 1210Have I not suffered things to be forgiven?
5. 1211Have I not had my brain seared, my heart riven,
6. 1212Hopes sapped, name blighted, Life's life lied away?
7. 1213And only not to desperation driven,
8. 1214Because not altogether of such clay
9. 1215As rots into the souls of those whom I survey.

1. 1216From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy
2. 1217Have I not seen what human things could do?
3. 1218From the loud roar of foaming calumny
4. 1219To the small whisper of the as paltry few--
5. 1220And subtler venom of the reptile crew,
6. 1221The Janus glanceof whose significant eye,
7. 1222Learning to lie with silence, would seem true--
8. 1223And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh,
9. 1224Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy.

1. 1225But I have lived, and have not lived in vain:
2. 1226My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire,
3. 1227And my frame perish even in conquering pain;
4. 1228But there is that within me which shall tire
5. 1229Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire;
6. 1230Something unearthly, which they deem not of,
7. 1231Like the remembered tone of a mute lyre,
8. 1232Shall on their softened spirits sink, and move
9. 1233In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of Love.

1. 1234The seal is set.--Now welcome, thou dread Power!
2. 1235Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here
3. 1236Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight hour
4. 1237With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear;
5. 1238Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear
6. 1239Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene
7. 1240Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear
8. 1241That we become a part of what has been,
9. 1242And grow upon the spot--all-seeing but unseen.

1. 1243And here the buzz of eager nations ran,
2. 1244In murmured pity, or loud-roared applause,
3. 1245As man was slaughtered by his fellow man.
4. 1246And wherefore slaughtered? wherefore, but because
5. 1247Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws,
6. 1248And the imperial pleasure.--Wherefore not?
7. 1249What matters where we fall to fill the maws
8. 1250Of worms--on battle-plains or listed spot?
9. 1251Both are but theatres--where the chief actors rot.

1. 1252I see before me the Gladiatorlie:
2. 1253He leans upon his hand--his manly brow
3. 1254Consents to death, but conquers agony,
4. 1255And his drooped head sinks gradually low--
5. 1256And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
6. 1257From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
7. 1258Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now
8. 1259The arena swims around him--he is gone,
9. 1260Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.

1. 1261He heard it, but he heeded not--his eyes
2. 1262Were with his heart--and that was far away;
3. 1263He recked not of the life he lost nor prize,
4. 1264But where his rude hut by the Danube lay--
5. 1265There were his young barbarians all at play,
6. 1266There was their Dacian mother--he, their sire,
7. 1267Butchered to make a Roman holiday--
8. 1268All this rushed with his blood--Shall he expire
9. 1269And unavenged?--Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!

1. 1270But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam;--
2. 1271And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways,
3. 1272And roared or murmured like a mountain stream
4. 1273Dashing or winding as its torrent strays;
5. 1274Here, where the Roman million's blame or praise
6. 1275Was Death or Life--the playthings of a crowd--
7. 1276My voice sounds much--and fall the stars' faint rays
8. 1277On the arena void--seats crushed--walls bowed--
9. 1278And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud.

1. 1279A Ruin--yet what Ruin! from its mass
2. 1280Walls--palaces--half-cities, have been reared;
3. 1281Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass,
4. 1282And marvel where the spoil could have appeared.
5. 1283Hath it indeed been plundered, or but cleared?
6. 1284Alas! developed, opens the decay,
7. 1285When the colossal fabric's form is neared:
8. 1286It will not bear the brightness of the day,
9. 1287Which streams too much on all--years--man--have reft away.

1. 1288But when the rising moon begins to climb
2. 1289Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there--
3. 1290When the stars twinkle through the loops of Time,
4. 1291And the low night-breeze waves along the air
5. 1292The garland-forest, which the gray walls wear,
6. 1293Like laurels on the bald first Cæsar's head--
7. 1294When the light shines serene but doth not glare--
8. 1295Then in this magic circle raise the dead;--
9. 1296Heroes have trod this spot--'tis on their dust ye tread.

1. 1297"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand:
2. 1298When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;
3. 1299And when Rome falls--the World." From our own land
4. 1300Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall
5. 1301In Saxon times, which we are wont to call
6. 1302Ancient; and these three mortal things are still
7. 1303On their foundations, and unaltered all--
8. 1304Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's skill--
9. 1305The World--the same wide den--of thieves, or what ye will.

1. 1306Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime--
2. 1307Shrine of all saints and temple of all Gods,
3. 1308From Jove to Jesus--spared and blest by Time--
4. 1309Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods
5. 1310Arch--empire--each thing round thee--and Man plods
6. 1311His way through thorns to ashes--glorious Dome!
7. 1312Shalt thou not last? Time's scythe and Tyrants' rods
8. 1313Shiver upon thee--sanctuary and home
9. 1314Of Art and Piety--Pantheon!--pride of Rome!

1. 1315Relic of nobler days, and noblest arts!
2. 1316Despoiled yet perfect! with thy circle spreads
3. 1317A holiness appealing to all hearts;
4. 1318To Art a model--and to him who treads
5. 1319Rome for the sake of ages, Glory sheds
6. 1320Her light through thy sole aperture; to those
7. 1321Who worship, here are altars for their beads--
8. 1322And they who feel for Genius may repose
9. 1323Their eyes on honoured forms, whose busts around them close.

1. 1324There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light
2. 1325What do I gaze on? Nothing--Look again!
3. 1326Two forms are slowly shadowed on my sight--
4. 1327Two insulated phantoms of the brain:
5. 1328It is not so--I see them full and plain--
6. 1329An old man, and a female young and fair,
7. 1330Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein
8. 1331The blood is nectar:--but what doth she there,
9. 1332With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare?

1. 1333Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life,
2. 1334Where on the heart and from the heart we took
3. 1335Our first and sweetest nurture--when the wife,
4. 1336Blest into mother, in the innocent look,
5. 1337Or even the piping cry of lips that brook
6. 1338No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives
7. 1339Man knows not--when from out its cradled nook
8. 1340She sees her little bud put forth its leaves--
9. 1341What may the fruit be yet?--I know not--Cain was Eve's.

1. 1342But here Youth offers to Old Age the food,
2. 1343The milk of his own gift: it is her Sire
3. 1344To whom she renders back the debt of blood
4. 1345Born with her birth:--No--he shall not expire
5. 1346While in those warm and lovely veins the fire
6. 1347Of health and holy feeling can provide
7. 1348Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises higher
8. 1349Than Egypt's river:--from that gentle side
9. 1350Drink--drink, and live--Old Man! Heaven's realm holds no such tide.

1. 1351The starry fable of the Milky WayHas not thy story's purity; it is
2. 1352A constellation of a sweeter ray,
3. 1353And sacred Nature triumphs more in this
4. 1354Reverse of her decree, than in the abyss
5. 1355Where sparkle distant worlds:--Oh, holiest Nurse!
6. 1356No drop of that clear stream its way shall miss
7. 1357To thy Sire's heart, replenishing its source
8. 1358With life, as our freed souls rejoin the Universe.

1. 1359Turn to the Molewhich Hadrian reared on high,
2. 1360Imperial mimic of old Egypt's piles,
3. 1361Colossal copyist of deformity--
4. 1362Whose travelled phantasy from the far Nile's
5. 1363Enormous model, doomed the artist's toils
6. 1364To build for Giants, and for his vain earth,
7. 1365His shrunken ashes, raise this Dome: How smiles
8. 1366The gazer's eye with philosophic mirth,
9. 1367To view the huge design which sprung from such a birth!

1. 1368But lo! the Dome--the vast and wondrous Dome,
2. 1369To which Diana's marvel was a cell--
3. 1370Christ's mighty shrine above His martyr's tomb!
4. 1371I have beheld the Ephesian's miracle--
5. 1372Its columns strew the wilderness, and dwell
6. 1373The hyæna and the jackal in their shade;
7. 1374I have beheld Sophia's bright roofs swell
8. 1375Their glittering mass i' the Sun, and have surveyed
9. 1376Its sanctuary the while the usurping Moslem prayed;

1. 1377But thou, of temples old, or altars new,
2. 1378Standest alone--with nothing like to thee--
3. 1379Worthiest of God, the Holy and the True!
4. 1380Since Zion's desolation, when that He
5. 1381Forsook his former city, what could be,
6. 1382Of earthly structures, in His honour piled,
7. 1383Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty--
8. 1384Power--Glory--Strength--and Beauty all are aisled
9. 1385In this eternal Ark of worship undefiled.

1. 1386Enter: its grandeur overwhelms thee not;
2. 1387And why? it is not lessened--but thy mind,
3. 1388Expanded by the Genius of the spot,
4. 1389Has grown colossal, and can only find
5. 1390A fitabode wherein appear enshrined
6. 1391Thy hopes of Immortality--and thou
7. 1392Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined
8. 1393See thy God face to face, as thou dost now
9. 1394His Holy of Holies--nor be blasted by his brow.

1. 1395Thou movest--but increasing with the advance,
2. 1396Like climbing some great Alp, which still doth rise,
3. 1397Deceived by its gigantic elegance--
4. 1398Vastness which grows, but grows to harmonize--
5. 1399All musical in its immensities;
6. 1400Rich marbles, richer painting--shrines where flame
7. 1401The lamps of gold--and haughty dome which vies
8. 1402In air with Earth's chief structures, though their frame
9. 1403Sits on the firm-set ground--and this the clouds must claim.

1. 1404Thou seest not all--but piecemeal thou must break,
2. 1405To separate contemplation, the great whole;
3. 1406And as the Ocean many bays will make
4. 1407That ask the eye--so here condense thy soul
5. 1408To more immediate objects, and control
6. 1409Thy thoughts until thy mind hath got by heart
7. 1410Its eloquent proportions, and unroll
8. 1411In mighty graduations, part by part,
9. 1412The Glory which at once upon thee did not dart,

1. 1413Not by its fault--but thine: Our outward sense
2. 1414Is but of gradual grasp--and as it is
3. 1415That what we have of feeling most intense
4. 1416Outstrips our faint expression; even so this
5. 1417Outshining and o'erwhelming edifice
6. 1418Fools our fond gaze, and greatest of the great
7. 1419Defies at first our Nature's littleness,
8. 1420Till, growing with its growth, we thus dilate
9. 1421Our Spirits to the size of that they contemplate.

1. 1422Then pause, and be enlightened; there is more
2. 1423In such a survey than the sating gaze
3. 1424Of wonder pleased, or awe which would adore
4. 1425The worship of the place, or the mere praise
5. 1426Of Art and its great Masters, who could raise
6. 1427What former time, nor skill, nor thought could plan:
7. 1428The fountain of Sublimity displays
8. 1429Its depth, and thence may draw the mind of Man
9. 1430Its golden sands, and learn what great Conceptions can.

1. 1431Or, turning to the Vatican, go see
2. 1432Laocoön'storture dignifying pain--
3. 1433A Father's love and Mortal's agony
4. 1434With an Immortal's patience blending:--Vain
5. 1435The struggle--vain, against the coiling strain
6. 1436And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp,
7. 1437The Old Man's clench; the long envenomed chain
8. 1438Rivets the living links,--the enormous Asp
9. 1439Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp.

1. 1440Or view the Lord of the unerring bow,
2. 1441The God of Life, and Poesy, and Light--
3. 1442The Sun in human limbs arrayed, and brow
4. 1443All radiant from his triumph in the fight;
5. 1444The shaft hath just been shot--the arrow bright
6. 1445With an Immortal's vengeance--in his eye
7. 1446And nostril beautiful Disdain, and Might
8. 1447And Majesty, flash their full lightnings by,
9. 1448Developing in that one glance the Deity.

1. 1449But in his delicate form--a dream of Love,
2. 1450Shaped by some solitary Nymph, whose breast
3. 1451Longed for a deathless lover from above,
4. 1452And maddened in that vision--are exprest
5. 1453All that ideal Beauty ever blessed
6. 1454The mind with in its most unearthly mood,
7. 1455When each Conception was a heavenly Guest--
8. 1456A ray of Immortality--and stood,
9. 1457Starlike, around, until they gathered to a God!

1. 1458And if it be Prometheus stole from Heaven
2. 1459The fire which we endure--it was repaid
3. 1460By him to whom the energy was given
4. 1461Which this poetic marble hath arrayed
5. 1462With an eternal Glory--which, if made
6. 1463By human hands, is not of human thought--
7. 1464And Time himself hath hallowed it, nor laid
8. 1465One ringlet in the dust--nor hath it caught
9. 1466A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which 'twas wrought.

1. 1467But where is he, the Pilgrim of my Song,
2. 1468The Being who upheld it through the past?
3. 1469Methinks he cometh late and tarries long.
4. 1470He is no more--these breathings are his last--
5. 1471His wanderings done--his visions ebbing fast,
6. 1472And he himself as nothing:--if he was
7. 1473Aught but a phantasy, and could be classed
8. 1474With forms which live and suffer--let that pass--
9. 1475His shadow fades away into Destruction's mass,

1. 1476Which gathers shadow--substance--life, and all
2. 1477That we inherit in its mortal shroud--
3. 1478And spreads the dim and universal pall
4. 1479Through which all things grow phantoms; and the cloud
5. 1480Between us sinks and all which ever glowed,
6. 1481Till Glory's self is twilight, and displays
7. 1482A melancholy halo scarce allowed
8. 1483To hover on the verge of darkness--rays
9. 1484Sadder than saddest night, for they distract the gaze,

1. 1485And send us prying into the abyss,
2. 1486To gather what we shall be when the frame
3. 1487Shall be resolved to something less than this--
4. 1488Its wretched essence; and to dream of fame,
5. 1489And wipe the dust from off the idle name
6. 1490We never more shall hear,--but never more,
7. 1491Oh, happier thought! can we be made the same:--
8. 1492It is enough in sooth that once we bore
9. 1493These fardelsof the heart--the heart whose sweat was gore.

1. 1494Hark! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds,
2. 1495A long low distant murmur of dread sound,
3. 1496Such as arises when a nation bleeds
4. 1497With some deep and immedicable wound;--
5. 1498Through storm and darkness yawns the rending ground--
6. 1499The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the Chief
7. 1500Seems royal still, though with her head discrowned,
8. 1501And pale, but lovely, with maternal grief--
9. 1502She clasps a babe, to whom her breast yields no relief.

1. 1503Scion of Chiefs and Monarchs, where art thou?
2. 1504Fond Hope of many nations, art thou dead?
3. 1505Could not the Grave forget thee, and lay low
4. 1506Some less majestic, less belovéd head?
5. 1507In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled,
6. 1508The mother of a moment, o'er thy boy,
7. 1509Death hushed that pang for ever: with thee fled
8. 1510The present happiness and promised joy
9. 1511Which filled the Imperial Isles so full it seemed to cloy.

1. 1512Peasants bring forth in safety.--Can it be,
2. 1513Oh thou that wert so happy, so adored!
3. 1514Those who weep not for Kings shall weep for thee,
4. 1515And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, cease to hoard
5. 1516Her many griefs for One; for she had poured
6. 1517Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head
7. 1518Beheld her Iris.--Thou, too, lonely Lord,
8. 1519And desolate Consort--vainly wert thou wed!
9. 1520The husband of a year! the father of the dead!

1. 1521Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made;
2. 1522Thy bridal's fruit is ashes: in the dust
3. 1523The fair-haired Daughter of the Isles is laid,
4. 1524The love of millions! How we did entrust
5. 1525Futurity to her! and, though it must
6. 1526Darken above our bones, yet fondly deemed
7. 1527Our children should obey her child, and blessed
8. 1528Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seemed
9. 1529Like stars to shepherd's eyes:--'twas but a meteor beamed.

1. 1530Woe unto us--not her--for she sleeps well:
2. 1531The fickle reek of popular breath,the tongue
3. 1532Of hollow counsel, the false oracle,
4. 1533Which from the birth of Monarchy hath rung
5. 1534Its knell in princely ears, till the o'erstung
6. 1535Nations have armed in madness--the strange fate
7. 1536Which tumbles mightiest sovereigns,and hath flung
8. 1537Against their blind omnipotence a weight
9. 1538Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon or late,--

1. 1539These might have been her destiny--but no--
2. 1540Our hearts deny it: and so young, so fair,
3. 1541Good without effort, great without a foe;
4. 1542But now a Bride and Mother--and now there!
5. 1543How many ties did that stern moment tear!
6. 1544From thy Sire's to his humblest subject's breast
7. 1545Is linked the electric chain of that despair,
8. 1546Whose shock was as an Earthquake's,and opprest
9. 1547The land which loved thee so that none could love thee best.

1. 1548Lo, Nemi!navelled in the woody hills
2. 1549So far, that the uprooting Wind which tears
3. 1550The oak from his foundation, and which spills
4. 1551The Ocean o'er its boundary, and bears
5. 1552Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares
6. 1553The oval mirror of thy glassy lake;
7. 1554And calm as cherished hate, its surface wears
8. 1555A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake,
9. 1556All coiled into itself and round, as sleeps the snake.

1. 1557And near, Albano's scarce divided waves
2. 1558Shine from a sister valley;--and afar
3. 1559The Tiber winds, and the broad Ocean laves
4. 1560The Latian coast where sprung the Epic war,
5. 1561"Arms and the Man," whose re-ascending star
6. 1562Rose o'er an empire:--but beneath thy right
7. 1563Tully reposed from Rome;--and where yon bar
8. 1564Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight
9. 1565The Sabine farm was tilled, the weary Bard's delight.

1. 1566But I forget.--My Pilgrim's shrine is won,
2. 1567And he and I must part,--so let it be,--
3. 1568His task and mine alike are nearly done;
4. 1569Yet once more let us look upon the Sea;
5. 1570The Midland Ocean breaks on him and me,
6. 1571And from the Alban Mount we now behold
7. 1572Our friend of youth, that Ocean, which when we
8. 1573Beheld it last by Calpe's rockunfold
9. 1574Those waves, we followed on till the dark Euxine rolled

1. 1575Upon the blue Symplegades: long years--
2. 1576Long, though not very many--since have done
3. 1577Their work on both; some suffering and some tears
4. 1578Have left us nearly where we had begun:
5. 1579Yet not in vain our mortal race hath run--
6. 1580We have had our reward--and it is here,--
7. 1581That we can yet feel gladdened by the Sun,
8. 1582And reap from Earth--Sea--joy almost as dear
9. 1583As if there were no Man to trouble what is clear.

1. 1584Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place,
2. 1585With one fair Spirit for my minister,
3. 1586That I might all forget the human race,
4. 1587And, hating no one, love but only her!
5. 1588Ye elements!--in whose ennobling stir
6. 1589I feel myself exalted--Can ye not
7. 1590Accord me such a Being? Do I err
8. 1591In deeming such inhabit many a spot?
9. 1592Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot.

1. 1593There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
2. 1594There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
3. 1595There is society, where none intrudes,
4. 1596By the deep Sea, and Music in its roar:
5. 1597I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
6. 1598From these our interviews, in which I steal
7. 1599From all I may be, or have been before,
8. 1600To mingle with the Universe,and feel
9. 1601What I can ne'er express--yet can not all conceal.

1. 1602Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean--roll!
2. 1603Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
3. 1604Man marks the earth with ruin--his control
4. 1605Stops with the shore;--upon the watery plain
5. 1606The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
6. 1607A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
7. 1608When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
8. 1609He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan--
9. 1610Without a grave--unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

1. 1611His steps are not upon thy paths,--thy fields
2. 1612Are not a spoil for him,--thou dost arise
3. 1613And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
4. 1614For Earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
5. 1615Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies--
6. 1616And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray
7. 1617And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies
8. 1618His petty hope in some near port or bay,
9. 1619And dashest him again to Earth:--there let him lay.

1. 1620The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
2. 1621Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
3. 1622And Monarchs tremble in their Capitals,
4. 1623The oak Leviathans,whose huge ribs make
5. 1624Their clay creator the vain title take
6. 1625Of Lord of thee, and Arbiter of War--
7. 1626These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
8. 1627They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
9. 1628Alike the Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar.

1. 1629Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee--
2. 1630Assyria--Greece--Rome--Carthage--what are they?
3. 1631Thy waters washedthem power while they were free,
4. 1632And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
5. 1633The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
6. 1634Has dried up realms to deserts:--not so thou,
7. 1635Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play,
8. 1636Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow--
9. 1637Such as Creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

1. 1638Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
2. 1639Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
3. 1640Calm or convulsed--in breeze, or gale, or storm--
4. 1641Icing the Pole, or in the torrid clime
5. 1642Dark-heaving--boundless, endless, and sublime--
6. 1643The image of Eternity-the throne
7. 1644Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime
8. 1645The monsters of the deep are made--each Zone
9. 1646Obeys thee--thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

1. 1647And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
2. 1648Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
3. 1649Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
4. 1650I wantoned with thy breakers--they to me
5. 1651Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
6. 1652Made them a terror--'twas a pleasing fear,
7. 1653For I was as it were a Child of thee,
8. 1654And trusted to thy billows far and near,
9. 1655And laid my hand upon thy mane--as I do here.

1. 1656My task is done--my song hath ceased--my theme
2. 1657Has died into an echo; it is fit
3. 1658The spell should break of this protracted dream.
4. 1659The torch shall be extinguished which hath lit
5. 1660My midnight lamp--and what is writ, is writ,--
6. 1661Would it were worthier! but I am not now
7. 1662That which I have been--and my visions flit
8. 1663Less palpably before me--and the glow
9. 1664Which in my Spirit dwelt is fluttering, faint, and low.

1. 1665Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been--
2. 1666A sound which makes us linger;--yet--farewell!
3. 1667Ye! who have traced the Pilgrim to the scene
4. 1668Which is his last--if in your memories dwell
5. 1669A thought which once was his--if on ye swell
6. 1670A single recollection--not in vain
7. 1671He wore his sandal-shoon, and scallop-shell;
8. 1672Farewell! with him alone may rest the pain,
9. 1673If such there were--with you, the Moral of his Strain.