The Prophecy of Dante[;] Canto the Second

1. 1The Spirit of the fervent days of Old,
2. 2When words were things that came to pass, and Thought
3. 3Flashed o'er the future, bidding men behold
4. 4Their children's children's doom already brought
5. 5Forth from the abyss of Time which is to be,
6. 6The Chaos of events, where lie half-wrought
7. 7Shapes that must undergo mortality;
8. 8What the great Seers of Israel wore within,
9. 9That Spirit was on them, and is on me,
10. 10And if, Cassandra-like, amidst the din
11. 11Of conflict none will hear, or hearing heed
12. 12This voice from out the Wilderness, the sin
13. 13Be theirs, and my own feelings be my meed,
14. 14The only guerdon I have ever known.
15. 15Hast thou not bled? and hast thou still to bleed,
16. 16Italia? Ah! to me such things, foreshown
17. 17With dim sepulchral light, bid me forget
18. 18In thine irreparable wrongs my own;
19. 19We can have but one Country, and even yet
20. 20Thou'rt mine--my bones shall be within thy breast,
21. 21My Soul within thy language, which once set
22. 22With our old Roman sway in the wide West;
23. 23But I will make another tongue arise
24. 24As lofty and more sweet, in which expressed
25. 25The hero's ardour, or the lover's sighs,
26. 26Shall find alike such sounds for every theme
27. 27That every word, as brilliant as thy skies,
28. 28Shall realise a Poet's proudest dream,
29. 29And make thee Europe's Nightingale of Song;
30. 30So that all present speech to thine shall seem
31. 31The note of meaner birds, and every tongue
32. 32Confess its barbarism when compared with thine.
33. 33This shalt thou owe to him thou didst so wrong,
34. 34Thy Tuscan bard, the banished Ghibelline.
35. 35Woe! woe! the veil of coming centuries
36. 36Is rent,--a thousand years which yet supine
37. 37Lie like the ocean waves ere winds arise,
38. 38Heaving in dark and sullen undulation,
39. 39Float from Eternity into these eyes;
40. 40The storms yet sleep, the clouds still keep their station,
41. 41The unborn Earthquake yet is in the womb,
42. 42The bloody Chaos yet expects Creation,
43. 43But all things are disposing for thy doom;
44. 44The Elements await but for the Word,
45. 45"Let there be darkness!" and thou grow'st a tomb!
46. 46Yes! thou, so beautiful, shalt feel the sword,
47. 47Thou, Italy! so fair that Paradise,
48. 48Revived in thee, blooms forth to man restored:
49. 49Ah! must the sons of Adam lose it twice?
50. 50Thou, Italy! whose ever golden fields,
51. 51Ploughed by the sunbeams solely, would suffice
52. 52For the world's granary; thou, whose sky Heaven gilds
53. 53With brighter stars, and robes with deeper blue;
54. 54Thou, in whose pleasant places Summer builds
55. 55Her palace, in whose cradle Empire grew,
56. 56And formed the Eternal City's ornaments
57. 57From spoils of Kings whom freemen overthrew;
58. 58Birthplace of heroes, sanctuary of Saints,
59. 59Where earthly first, then heavenly glory made
60. 60Her home; thou, all which fondest Fancy paints,
61. 61And finds her prior vision but portrayed
62. 62In feeble colours, when the eye--from the Alp
63. 63Of horrid snow, and rock, and shaggy shade
64. 64Of desert-loving pine, whose emerald scalp
65. 65Nods to the storm--dilates and dotes o'er thee,
66. 66And wistfully implores, as 'twere, for help
67. 67To see thy sunny fields, my Italy,
68. 68Nearer and nearer yet, and dearer still
69. 69The more approached, and dearest were they free,
70. 70Thou--Thou must wither to each tyrant's will:
71. 71The Goth hath been,--the German, Frank, and Hun
72. 72Are yet to come,--and on the imperial hill
73. 73Ruin, already proud of the deeds done
74. 74By the old barbarians, there awaits the new,
75. 75Throned on the Palatine, while lost and won
76. 76Rome at her feet lies bleeding; and the hue
77. 77Of human sacrifice and Roman slaughter
78. 78Troubles the clotted air, of late so blue,
79. 79And deepens into red the saffron water
80. 80Of Tiber, thick with dead; the helpless priest,
81. 81And still more helpless nor less holy daughter,
82. 82Vowed to their God, have shrieking fled, and ceased
83. 83Their ministry: the nations take their prey,
84. 84Iberian, Almain, Lombard, and the beast
85. 85And bird, wolf, vulture, more humane than they
86. 86Are; these but gorge the flesh, and lap the gore
87. 87Of the departed, and then go their way;
88. 88But those, the human savages, explore
89. 89All paths of torture, and insatiate yet,
90. 90With Ugolino hunger prowl for more.
91. 91Nine moons shall rise o'er scenes like this and set;
92. 92The chiefless army of the dead, which late
93. 93Beneath the traitor Prince's banner met,
94. 94Hath left its leader's ashes at the gate;
95. 95Had but the royal Rebel lived, perchance
96. 96Thou hadst been spared, but his involved thy fate.
97. 97Oh! Rome, the Spoiler or the spoil of France,
98. 98From Brennus to the Bourbon, never, never
99. 99Shall foreign standard to thy walls advance,
100. 100But Tiber shall become a mournful river.
101. 101Oh! when the strangers pass the Alps and Po,
102. 102Crush them, ye Rocks! Floods whelm them, and for ever!
103. 103Why sleep the idle Avalanches so,
104. 104To topple on the lonely pilgrim's head?
105. 105Why doth Eridanus but overflow
106. 106The peasant's harvest from his turbid bed?
107. 107Were not each barbarous horde a nobler prey?
108. 108Over Cambyses' host the desert spread
109. 109Her sandy ocean, and the Sea-waves' sway
110. 110Rolled over Pharaoh and his thousands,--why,
111. 111Mountains and waters, do ye not as they?
112. 112And you, ye Men! Romans, who dare not die,
113. 113Sons of the conquerors who overthrew
114. 114Those who overthrew proud Xerxes, where yet lie
115. 115The dead whose tomb Oblivion never knew,
116. 116Are the Alps weaker than Thermopylæ?
117. 117Their passes more alluring to the view
118. 118Of an invader? is it they, or ye,
119. 119That to each host the mountain-gate unbar,
120. 120And leave the march in peace, the passage free?
121. 121Why, Nature's self detains the Victor's car,
122. 122And makes your land impregnable, if earth
123. 123Could be so; but alone she will not war,
124. 124Yet aids the warrior worthy of his birth
125. 125In a soil where the mothers bring forth men:
126. 126Not so with those whose souls are little worth;
127. 127For them no fortress can avail,--the den
128. 128Of the poor reptile which preserves its sting
129. 129Is more secure than walls of adamant, when
130. 130The hearts of those within are quivering.
131. 131Are ye not brave? Yes, yet the Ausonian soil
132. 132Hath hearts, and hands, and arms, and hosts to bring
133. 133Against Oppression; but how vain the toil,
134. 134While still Division sows the seeds of woe
135. 135And weakness, till the Stranger reaps the spoil.
136. 136Oh! my own beauteous land! so long laid low,
137. 137So long the grave of thy own children's hopes,
138. 138When there is but required a single blow
139. 139To break the chain, yet--yet the Avenger stops,
140. 140And Doubt and Discord step 'twixt thine and thee,
141. 141And join their strength to that which with thee copes;
142. 142What is there wanting then to set thee free,
143. 143And show thy beauty in its fullest light?
144. 144To make the Alps impassable; and we,
145. 145Her Sons, may do this with one deed--Unite.