University of Virginia Library

Exult thou in thy gay magnificence!
Exult thou in thy glory! nor disdain,
Tho' rude to Tuscan ear the melody,
Reject not thou the strain,
That, mindful of thy beauty, dwells on thee,
Thou stately City fair!
Thy palaces—thy dome that soars in air,
Thy vale enamell'd with perpetual flow'rs,
And Arno's silvery stream fresh'ning the Muse's bow'rs.

Yet—'mid thy splendid fabrics I behold,
In massiveness of gloomy grandeur vast,
Gray with the years of old,
Thy fortress'd mansions in the antique mould
Of stern defiance cast.
Mark they not yet the barbarous age unblest,
When the keen warden, challenging the hour
While midnight, knew not rest,
Pac'd, a mail'd warrior, on th' embattl'd crest?
They breathe of times, when underneath the throne,
In cells of darkness, lay,
'Mid ice-drops bursting from the sunless stone,
The unransom'd captive, till the fleshless bone
Shrunk from its chain away.
They breathe of times
When hearths were haunted with domestic crimes:
Of times, when minstrels in the banner'd hall
Swept the loud harp at festival,
And Beauty's lip the bridal goblet prest,
Death smote th' affianc'd guest.
They breathe of times,
When, at the altar of the living God,
The pontiff, while he raised the Host to heav'n,
And every knee was bent, and forehead bow'd,
Saw with consenting eye the death-blow giv'n,
And while the dagger quiver'd, warm with gore,
Cast his absolving pall the brib'd assassin o'er.

Resplendent City! thou art girt around
With walls that bear the trace, where once uprose
Bulwarks and bastions, at whose foot thy foes
Pass'd from the moated mound,
And castles, where the war-worn battlement
Tells, in its late decline,
Of sieges, when the Guelf and Ghibelline
To Arno's banks their rival armies sent,
And hid her beauteous vale beneath th' invader's tent.

The shout of battle, and the cannon's roar
Has pass'd from Arno's shore:
The iron ring that grasp'd the Gonfalon,
When brother against brother arm'd his hand
Beneath the warden's signal brand,
Rests, idly rests, on the embossed stone.—
Yet, Tuscan! to remotest time
Tell the proud story of thy prime,
That war thy cradle rock'd 'mid stern alarms:
That, not immur'd in inassailable tow'rs,
Thy sires consum'd voluptuous hours
When Freedom call'd to arms.
Onward they went the war to wage,
To pitch before th' invader's eye
The Gonfalon, their battle-gage,
To wreathe their brow with victory,
Or consecrate in Glory's grave,
Death that awaits the brave.—

Tell, to enslav'd Italia tell,
When bow'd her strength beneath th' invader's yoke,
Thy spirit tow'r'd unbroke:
That last on Arno's sacred ground
The trace of Freedom's step was found:
That Arno's vale yet caught her last farewell,
When from the Tuscan arm th' unaided ægis fell.

Stranger! ascend yon brow!
Not when young Morn withdraws her silvery veil
An Eden to behold,
Fair-freshen'd by the stream's meand'ring flow:
Nor, when the broad sun slowly roll'd,
Wheels thro' heav'n's flaming vault his orb of gold'
On the green height to catch the temperate gale;
Stand thou, where Cosmo stood:
So found thy fame. So form the great design
Thy nation to exalt; her glory, thine.
Call thou on him, who, in prophetic mood
Exultant, from the crest of Appennine
Saw Art's fair light first dawn o'er Arno's vale,
Ere Brunellesco pois'd his dome divine,
Ere Giotto saw his tow'r sublimely rise,
And bold Ghiberti graved the gates of paradise.

Not less, proud Florence! to thy latest hour
Dwell on Lorenzo's day:
The merchant—the magnificent—the Lord
Of Arno, who, in plenitude of pow'r
By free-born sons ador'd,
On Commerce beam'd bright Fame's undying ray.
Hail him, the Bard, whose polish'd strain
Sooth'd to melodious sounds the bacchic roar,
And led the Muses from Illyssus' plain,
To plant their laurels by his native stream,
'Mid groves that breath'd of Academe:
Where Tuscan bow'rs Minerva's olive bore,
And Homer's harp at festive banquets rung,
And Plato's Attic grace tun'd chaste Politian's tongue.

A Muse the vessel steer'd, and spread the sail,
What time his fleet, Art's last remains to save,
Woo'd the consenting gale,
And to and fro, furrowing th' Ægean wave,
To Athens pass'd, and link'd to Arno's shore
Pireus: and brought back the freight sublime,
The Phidian statue, and the sculptur'd gem:
Relics that, hallow'd by the touch of Time,
Dim'd in Lorenzo's sight Golconda's diadem.

Behold yon dancing Fawn:—
So his gay foot, timing th' Evoë' song,
Led the wild Nymphs along:
So lightly bounded on th' Arcadian lawn,
When first the Bromian God to crown their mirth,
Press'd from the purple grape the drop that gladdens earth.

Lo! Niobe—on her uplifted brow
View agony imprest,
As her last child—now—now about to die,
Clings to the altar of a mother's breast.
Hark!—in the twang of the celestial bow
That mother hears the death-fraught arrow fly:
And, bending o'er her child to shield the blow,
Feels in that marble form, all—all a mother's woe.

Go where, descendent from above,
In charms beyond earth's fairest image bright,
The golden goddess of celestial love
Beams from the soul a light
That gives the sculptur'd form a grace divine.
There, bend before her shrine,
Adoring Art's sublimest influence.
Not this the Goddess, that on Ida's plain
Came to the Phrygian swain,
And, arm'd with Beauty's proud omnipotence,
Th' eclipsing veil withdrew,
And flash'd before his view
Charms that o'erwhelm'd the mortal's reeling sense:
Far lovelier, here, her form from gaze profane
Shrinks back, and as the marble seems to glow,
Guards with o'ershadowing arm her breast of virgin snow.

Fair Florence! at thy day's decline,
When came the shade from Appennine,
And suddenly on blade and bow'r
The fire-flies shed the sparkling show'r,
As if all heav'n to earth had sent
Each star that gems the firmament:
'Twas sweet, at that enchanting hour
To bathe in fragrance of th' Italian clime
By Arno's stream, her haunts among
Immortalis'd in song:
And feed on honey of the Tuscan rhyme
Mellifluous, in the myrtle's green alcove,
Whose echoes oft had rung
With notes more liquid than the nightingale,
That charm'd the list'ning vale,
What time the Bard of Laura and of Love,
To Eve's lone bird his amorous descant sung,
And borne in dream from Arno's gentle flow,
Told to hoarse Sorga's flood, and far Vaucluse, his woe.

Delightful on the brow of Fesoli
In idle hour to lie,
Where wont of old th' enchanter dwell:
He whose hundred-fabled spell,
When Florence 'mid her tainted walls,
Where day supply'd night's unblest funerals,
Saw horror, frenzy, and despair
Mingled with uncontroll'd voluptuousness,
Drew forth by its melodious pow'r,
To groves where fragrance fill'd the air,
And Health had built his chosen bow'r,
Etruria's earthly Pleiades,
The flower of Florence, fairest of the fair,
And gay and gallant youths the dream to share,
The dream so bright—so brief—of youthful happiness.

I trac'd them gliding in their gay career:
Now amid arbors, whose unfolding bloom
Breath'd on the gale perfume,
Where the smooth lawn was verdure all the year:
And o'er its freshness, cool as unsunn'd snow,
Living rivulets wreath'd their flow:
Now, under spread of trees, on beds of flow'rs
Round the smooth marble of a fountain clear,
They bent the tale to hear,
That link'd thro' ten brief days the summer hours,
Fabling of amorous bliss, or sweet distress:
While each in turn, sole regent of the day,
With laurel garland crown'd,
By witching words the ravished audience bound.
So sank the sun away.
Then on that pleasant place, when Eve had laid
The soothing of her shade,
When the sweet tale was mute,
And nought of harsher breathing heard
Than the low night-air, and the love-lorn bird,
Carol, and dance, and amorous song,
Wooing the touches of the tender lute,
Wing'd the fleet hours along.—
And now—all pass'd away—too swiftly gone—
And like a vision fled the gay Decameron.

Cradle of Science, Art, and Poesy!
Thy boast—and high the praise—thou honor'st, dead,
Whom, living, thou did'st crown
With more than kingly diadem—renown—
That, more than sculpture, grac'd their monument:
Tears that a nation shed,
The tear of veneration and lament.

“The Father of his Country” sleeps at rest,
By that proud title blest.
Thou guard'st Lorenzo's dust:
Thou honor'st Santa-Croce's hallow'd dead.
Thou bad'st Italia crown Alfieri's bust,
And Science, by thy filial worship led,
Hail Galileo's bed:
And Painting, Poesy, and Sculpture wave
The wreaths that Genius blends o'er Bonarotti's grave.

On these I lonely mus'd,
And, calling up their spirits from the tomb,
Commun'd in awful gloom,
Where no vain dreams of earth the soul abus'd.
Peace there abide! with other thoughts possest,
Than peace that hails the blest,
I pass'd within the portals of a dome,
Blazing with all that pomp, and pride, and pow'r
Round living majesty array,
Regardless that the worm there inly lay,
Mocking our mortal hour.
Its semblance was a palace, wherein Death,
Under a canopy of royal state
At solemn banquet sate,
And rank'd at his approach each shadowy guest:
Disquieting the world from east to west,
From north to south, from far Golconda's mines,
To where the sun o'er gold Peru declines,
To render up each hidden gem
A spectre to endiadem,
And crown corruption.—Ye! whose relics lie
In the gem'd monument and jasper urn;
Ye, heirs of guilt and misery!
Thou, hapless Sire, thou that did'st backward turn,
And strike the blow, when on thy poniard glow'd
The blood that from thy murder'd offspring flow'd,
Himself—a murderer!—and thou! yok'd with crime,
Slave of her charms, the fatal beauty fair,
Bianca, with the golden hair,
The fiend, who at the banquet board
With deadly drops the chalice stor'd,
Then fetter'd in her own infernal snare,
Fell on the brow of her expiring lord:
Fell 'mid the festive pomp—each, each a corse abhorr'd:
Ah! heirs of guilt! far better had it been
That ye had ne'er been born!
Or when in innocence ye sank to rest
On the maternal breast,
That death had o'er you clos'd the earthly scene
In childhood's blissful morn.
Far better had it been
That ye had lain, where peasants lie, unseen
In earth's dark bed: a turf, your nameless tomb:
Your grave, Oblivion's womb.

I pass'd away in scorn;—
And fondly sought, where, in what hallow'd ground
Eternally renown'd,
Where, in what tow'ring pyramid enclos'd,
Or brazen monument by Florence plac'd;
And Bonarotti grac'd,
The relics of the Tuscan Bard repos'd;
Or where it but an unadorned stone
By Dante's memory known:
Or were it but a grassy-mantled sod
O'er which a laurel grew,
And morn and eve refresh'd with drops of heav'nly dew.

In vain I sought around:
Tomb, nor funeral mound
On Florence rose, the hallow'd spot revealing:
No monumental rhyme
Beneath his native clime,
Grav'd on the votive stone a nation's feeling.

Athens of Italy! where Dante's urn?
Was thine the gate that on the Exile clos'd?
The gate that never witness'd his return?
Not on thy lap his brow in age repos'd:
Not, where his cradle rock'd, Death seal'd his eyes;
Beneath Ravenna's soil Hetruria's glory lies.

Yet—when o'er stranger earth the Exile stray'd,
His thoughts alone had rest
In the lov'd spot that first his foot had prest.
His spirit linger'd where the boy had play'd,
And join'd the counsels where the man bore part.
And could his lofty soul have stoop'd to shame,
There had the Eld in peace his breath resign'd.
But—to harsh exile with unbending mind
Went Dante, went the muse, went deathless fame,
And his pure soul, where'er the wanderer trod,
Dwelt communing with God.

What recks it that thy sons, in after age,
When centuries had seen his stranger tomb,
Revers'd the Exile's doom?
That Florence tore the record from her page,
And woo'd the remnant of his ancient race
To greet their native place?—
They may return, and in their birth-place die,
Shrouded in still obscurity.
But sooner shall the Appennine
On Arno's vale recline,
And Arno's crystal current cease to flow,
Ere that again in man a Dante's genius glow.

Guard then, as thy palladium, Florence! guard,
Guard as the Muse's shrine
His sacred stone, sole relic of the Bard.
There, on his youthfnl dream, the form divine
Dawn'd, ere the beacon of relentless hate
Flam'd o'er th' unclosing gate;
And there, in after-time,
An eagle soaring in the might of youth,
Yet not unknown of fame,
From distant Thames, and the bleak northern clime,
Britannia's Milton came:
Led by the Tuscan Muse, whose wide career
Now reach'd heav'n's highest sphere,
Now fathom'd the Tartarean depth below:
Or when to earth devote,
As Love and Terror smote,
Swell'd the deep chord that ic'd the blood with fear
At Ugolino's feast, or sad and slow
Drew from the heart the tear that wept Francesca's woe.

But—not the Tuscan fount
Melodious, nor the gush of Hippocrene,
That roll'd its music from the double mount,
Castalia's rocks between,
Not these alone—tho' full their current flow'd
On Milton's thirsty lip—not these alone,
But waters welling from the hill of God,
To Siloa's prophets known,
Were sought of him, who, while his spirit glow'd
With the deep burning of intense desire,
In the pure sanctuary of hallowing fame
To consecrate his name,
Beheld Urania from th' angelic choir,
Not uninvok'd, descend,
And to her votary bring a seraph's golden lyre.