The Prophecy of Dante[;] Canto the Third

1. 1From out the mass of never-dying ill,
2. 2The Plague, the Prince, the Stranger, and the Sword,
3. 3Vials of wrath but emptied to refill
4. 4And flow again, I cannot all record
5. 5That crowds on my prophetic eye: the Earth
6. 6And Ocean written o'er would not afford
7. 7Space for the annal, yet it shall go forth;
8. 8Yes, all, though not by human pen, is graven,
9. 9There where the farthest suns and stars have birth,
10. 10Spread like a banner at the gate of Heaven,
11. 11The bloody scroll of our millennial wrongs
12. 12Waves, and the echo of our groans is driven
13. 13Athwart the sound of archangelic songs,
14. 14And Italy, the martyred nation's gore,
15. 15Will not in vain arise to where belongs
16. 16Omnipotence and Mercy evermore:
17. 17Like to a harpstring stricken by the wind,
18. 18The sound of her lament shall, rising o'er
19. 19The Seraph voices, touch the Almighty Mind.
20. 20Meantime I, humblest of thy sons, and of
21. 21Earth's dust by immortality refined
22. 22To Sense and Suffering, though the vain may scoff,
23. 23And tyrants threat, and meeker victims bow
24. 24Before the storm because its breath is rough,
25. 25To thee, my Country! whom before, as now,
26. 26I loved and love, devote the mournful lyre
27. 27And melancholy gift high Powers allow
28. 28To read the future: and if now my fire
29. 29Is not as once it shone o'er thee, forgive!
30. 30I but foretell thy fortunes--then expire;
31. 31Think not that I would look on them and live.
32. 32A Spirit forces me to see and speak,
33. 33And for my guerdon grants not to survive;
34. 34My Heart shall be poured over thee and break:
35. 35Yet for a moment, ere I must resume
36. 36Thy sable web of Sorrow, let me take
37. 37Over the gleams that flash athwart thy gloom
38. 38A softer glimpse; some stars shine through thy night,
39. 39And many meteors, and above thy tomb
40. 40Leans sculptured Beauty, which Death cannot blight:
41. 41And from thine ashes boundless Spirits rise
42. 42To give thee honour, and the earth delight;
43. 43Thy soil shall still be pregnant with the wise,
44. 44The gay, the learned, the generous, and the brave,
45. 45Native to thee as Summer to thy skies,
46. 46Conquerors on foreign shores, and the far wave,
47. 47Discoverers of new worlds, which take their name;
48. 48For thee alone they have no arm to save,
49. 49And all thy recompense is in their fame,
50. 50A noble one to them, but not to thee--
51. 51Shall they be glorious, and thou still the same?
52. 52Oh! more than these illustrious far shall be
53. 53The Being--and even yet he may be born--
54. 54The mortal Saviour who shall set thee free,
55. 55And see thy diadem, so changed and worn
56. 56By fresh barbarians, on thy brow replaced;
57. 57And the sweet Sun replenishing thy morn,
58. 58Thy moral morn, too long with clouds defaced,
59. 59And noxious vapours from Avernus risen,
60. 60Such as all they must breathe who are debased
61. 61By Servitude, and have the mind in prison.
62. 62Yet through this centuried eclipse of woe
63. 63Some voices shall be heard, and Earth shall listen;
64. 64Poets shall follow in the path I show,
65. 65And make it broader: the same brilliant sky
66. 66Which cheers the birds to song shall bid them glow,
67. 67And raise their notes as natural and high;
68. 68Tuneful shall be their numbers; they shall sing
69. 69Many of Love, and some of Liberty,
70. 70But few shall soar upon that Eagle's wing,
71. 71And look in the Sun's face, with Eagle's gaze,
72. 72All free and fearless as the feathered King,
73. 73But fly more near the earth; how many a phrase
74. 74Sublime shall lavished be on some small prince
75. 75In all the prodigality of Praise!
76. 76And language, eloquently false, evince
77. 77The harlotry of Genius, which, like Beauty,
78. 78Too oft forgets its own self-reverence,
79. 79And looks on prostitution as a duty.
80. 80He who once enters in a Tyrant's hall
81. 81As guest is slave--his thoughts become a booty,
82. 82And the first day which sees the chain enthral
83. 83A captive, sees his half of Manhood gone --
84. 84The Soul's emasculation saddens all
85. 85His spirit; thus the Bard too near the throne
86. 86Quails from his inspiration, bound to please,--
87. 87How servile is the task to please alone!
88. 88To smooth the verse to suit his Sovereign's ease
89. 89And royal leisure, nor too much prolong
90. 90Aught save his eulogy, and find, and seize,
91. 91Or force, or forge fit argument of Song!
92. 92Thus trammelled, thus condemned to Flattery's trebles,
93. 93He toils through all, still trembling to be wrong:
94. 94For fear some noble thoughts, like heavenly rebels,
95. 95Should rise up in high treason to his brain,
96. 96He sings, as the Athenian spoke, with pebbles
97. 97In's mouth, lest Truth should stammer through his strain.
98. 98But out of the long file of sonneteers
99. 99There shall be some who will not sing in vain,
100. 100And he, their Prince, shall rank among my peers,
101. 101And Love shall be his torment; but his grief
102. 102Shall make an immortality of tears,
103. 103And Italy shall hail him as the Chief
104. 104Of Poet-lovers, and his higher song
105. 105Of Freedom wreathe him with as green a leaf.
106. 106But in a farther age shall rise along
107. 107The banks of Po two greater still than he;
108. 108The World which smiled on him shall do them wrong
109. 109Till they are ashes, and repose with me.
110. 110The first will make an epoch with his lyre,
111. 111And fill the earth with feats of Chivalry:
112. 112His Fancy like a rainbow, and his Fire,
113. 113Like that of Heaven, immortal, and his Thought
114. 114Borne onward with a wing that cannot tire;
115. 115Pleasure shall, like a butterfly new caught,
116. 116Flutter her lovely pinions o'er his theme,
117. 117And Art itself seem into Nature wrought
118. 118By the transparency of his bright dream.--
119. 119The second, of a tenderer, sadder mood,
120. 120Shall pour his soul out o'er Jerusalem;
121. 121He, too, shall sing of Arms, and Christian blood
122. 122Shed where Christ bled for man; and his high harp
123. 123Shall, by the willow over Jordan's flood,
124. 124Revive a song of Sion, and the sharp
125. 125Conflict, and final triumph of the brave
126. 126And pious, and the strife of Hell to warp
127. 127Their hearts from their great purpose, until wave
128. 128The red-cross banners where the first red Cross
129. 129Was crimsoned from His veins who died to save,
130. 130Shall be his sacred argument; the loss
131. 131Of years, of favour, freedom, even of fame
132. 132Contested for a time, while the smooth gloss
133. 133Of Courts would slide o'er his forgotten name
134. 134And call Captivity a kindness--meant
135. 135To shield him from insanity or shame--
136. 136Such shall be his meek guerdon! who was sent
137. 137To be Christ's Laureate--they reward him well!
138. 138Florence dooms me but death or banishment,
139. 139Ferrara him a pittance and a cell,
140. 140Harder to bear and less deserved, for I
141. 141Had stung the factions which I strove to quell;
142. 142But this meek man who with a lover's eye
143. 143Will look on Earth and Heaven, and who will deign
144. 144To embalm with his celestial flattery,
145. 145As poor a thing as e'er was spawned to reign,
146. 146What will he do to merit such a doom?
147. 147Perhaps he'll love,--and is not Love in vain
148. 148Torture enough without a living tomb?
149. 149Yet it will be so--he and his compeer,
150. 150The Bard of Chivalry, will both consume
151. 151In penury and pain too many a year,
152. 152And, dying in despondency, bequeath
153. 153To the kind World, which scarce will yield a tear,
154. 154A heritage enriching all who breathe
155. 155With the wealth of a genuine Poet's soul,
156. 156And to their country a redoubled wreath,
157. 157Unmatched by time; not Hellas can unroll
158. 158Through her Olympiads two such names, though one
159. 159Of hers be mighty;--and is this the whole
160. 160Of such men's destiny beneath the Sun?
161. 161Must all the finer thoughts, the thrilling sense,
162. 162The electric blood with which their arteries run,
163. 163Their body's self turned soul with the intense
164. 164Feeling of that which is, and fancy of
165. 165That which should be, to such a recompense
166. 166Conduct? shall their bright plumage on the rough
167. 167Storm be still scattered? Yes, and it must be;
168. 168For, formed of far too penetrable stuff,
169. 169These birds of Paradise but long to flee
170. 170Back to their native mansion, soon they find
171. 171Earth's mist with their pure pinions not agree,
172. 172And die or are degraded; for the mind
173. 173Succumbs to long infection, and despair,
174. 174And vulture Passions flying close behind,
175. 175Await the moment to assail and tear;
176. 176And when, at length, the wingéd wanderers stoop,
177. 177Then is the Prey-birds' triumph, then they share
178. 178The spoil, o'erpowered at length by one fell swoop.
179. 179Yet some have been untouched who learned to bear,
180. 180Some whom no Power could ever force to droop,
181. 181Who could resist themselves even, hardest care!
182. 182And task most hopeless; but some such have been,
183. 183And if my name amongst the number were,
184. 184That Destiny austere, and yet serene,
185. 185Were prouder than more dazzling fame unblessed;
186. 186The Alp's snow summit nearer heaven is seen
187. 187Than the Volcano's fierce eruptive crest,
188. 188Whose splendour from the black abyss is flung,
189. 189While the scorched mountain, from whose burning breast
190. 190A temporary torturing flame is wrung,
191. 191Shines for a night of terror, then repels
192. 192Its fire back to the Hell from whence it sprung,
193. 193The Hell which in its entrails ever dwells.