 | The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere |  |
ODE ON LEAVING ITALY.
1
Angels that with love ‘revereThe gentle changes of the day,’
Thus solaced bend they o'er the bier
Ausonia, of thy long decay?
184
Fan they, and fill with sighs as lowly
As tender, and as deep as those
The year on Summer's grave bestows;
When hectic mounds of vaporous wood
Extend for Autumn's cheek their cushion,
And Heaven's own tears on boughs o'er-dewed
Anoint them—‘for their dissolution?’
2
Ah, would it were so! Death-bells tolledO'er graves like these no pangs awaken:
Unguilty griefs are soon consoled,
But thou in death art shaken
By dreams in direful alternation
Of action blind, and aimless passion,
With hopes of future empire, based
On noblest instincts run to waste.
And worst of all, one sable pall
Hangs o'er that dying couch suspended:
Thyself, thou knowest, hast wrought thy fall—
Thy tears with tears of blood are blended.
3
Death, that from none accepts denial,In reverence thrice his sceptre bowed;
A triple life, a threefold trial,
The Fates to thee allowed.
Etrurian greatness gold had tamed
Ere Mars his iron empire claimed:
Then Rome arose; and like that God
All lands, subdued and bleeding, trod.
She sank:—Thy States, redeemed once more,
Upreared to Heaven a smiling brow:
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They rose: where lie they now?
4
Venice yet crowns the orb of waters,Why sinks she not beneath them? What
Are now her sons? her beauteous daughters—
Go, Stranger; name them not!
Genoa, whose star-eyed Pilgrim gave
Our world its mate beyond the wave,
Scarcely retains on Europe's shore
A name: her place is hers no more.
Her choicest boon where Nature showers
On thy blue bay, Parthenopè,
There most corruption blights the bowers
Of men too abject to be free.
5
Pisa to earth inclines her brow;Her ‘field of Death’ becomes her most:
Sea-born Amalphi needs not now
That compass, once her boast.
The sunshine beats Ravenna's streets:
That glare alone the traveller greets:
Ferrara wakes her echoes lone
In Tasso's wrong to sing her own:
Bologna's arts, and Padua's schools,
And sacerdotal Milan grey,
Old Saturn rules, while Janus fools;
And Momus ratifies their sway!
6
A wind-tossed wreath of odorous rosesAgainst me borne in wanton play
186
I know what ye would say!
Those haunts, I know, are sacred places,
Loved of the Loves and all the Graces;
And, wandering through those lucent bowers,
To love them, not to judge, is ours.
I love them—love in grief: and more
While on those glorious souls I muse
Wherewith surcharged they were of yore
As ye, rich flowers, with morning dews!
7
Day after day at Rome I sate,Dejected sate, with brow low-bent,
The vault of an abandoned gate
O'er head my firmament.
They muttered Freedom's queenly name:
It stung my sadness into shame.
The wise, the constant, Freedom calls;
The rest she scourges from her halls!
There Justice lifts her axe and rods;
There all the Virtues take their stand,
Sun-facing statues of the Gods
That guard a Heaven-loved land!
8
I asked for Brutus. What! too highThe passion? Give me Cæsar then!
Airs, airs in which her latest sigh
Cornelia left, ye nourished Men,
Ye nourished Men in those great days
Whereon I fix with grief my gaze—
O wildly-blooming, slenderest trees,
That bend like feathers in the breeze,
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In deprecating grace your tresses
Wide flinging, ye lament your wrong
From verse whose very praise oppresses
9
The masters of a milder swayI asked for. Dantè, where art thou?
Petrarca, shadowing with deep bay
The breadth of an illumined brow?
I asked—my tears fell fast and faster—
I asked for Raffaelle and his Master.
Those gleams, those pictured shapes of theirs!
Deep-breathers of Elysian airs—
O'er Earth they breathe them, pacing slowly
With steps that lead the Elysian measures!
O how their awful melancholy
Rebukes all baser pains and pleasures!
10
Cease, cease, wild bird, that melodyWhere grief is over scorn prevailing;
In grief thou singest—in grief sing I—
Must thou alone be wailing?
No, not in grief she sings, but love!
The Heavens themselves my grief reprove;
The Love-star through that roseate gloom
Leaps up—ah yes! o'er Virgil's tomb!
O'er Virgil's tomb! But where, O where
His strains?—Ye winds whose breath dispersed them
Abroad o'er every region, bear
Them back into the vales that nursed them!
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11
No vain regret or vain desireCould touch that breast whose thoughts immortal
Walked ever with the Olympian choir:
Across the guarded portal
Of godlike souls, no pangs of earth
Or entrance find, or issue forth.
Pity and love, not grief were thine,
Couldst thou, great Bard, thine eyes decline
On these fair shores! O teach me thus
To bend; nor sigh that beauty viewing
Of which yon Heaven is amorous
Descending fast to death and ruin!
12
The sun is set. Long shadows greyTrail slowly o'er the mountain head:
The olive-forests far away
Grow pale, like ashes spread
By some dejected Penitent,
On locks whose prime was idly spent—
Ah, brand no more with harsher name
A land which thus herself doth blame!
Still in the west a feeble glimmer
Is struggling with those shadows dun:
The face I love grows dim and dimmer—
'Tis going—It is gone.
| The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere | |