Italy and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Whence? from what station, shall the eye command
The glorious scenery?—Shall thy garden brow,
Fair Pincian! fix our stand?
Where, oft the dawn, day after day, has seen
My lone foot winding its delightful way
Thro' fragrance, and gay flow'rs, and arbors green:
And oft, when noon-tide's fiery ray
Intensely glar'd, where the dark ilex cast
O'er thy fresh fount the coolness of its shade,
Beneath its gloom I past:
Regardless not that in that fav'rite haunt
Under that ilex shade,
While the fresh fount perpetual music made,
From the surrounding scene a Poussin drew
His rich and mellow hue:
And Claude there taught his pencil how to trace
The soft aerial grace,

That sooth'd the westering sun, whose orb of light,
Like molten gold, on the proud temple shone:
And when the cooler hour came on,
Stole the chaste tint from the meek brow of eve,
That gliding into night,
There turn'd a last, and loveliest gleam to leave.

But—nor thy brow, fair Pincian! nor thy fount,
Soft-murmuring on the mount;
Nor where Corsini's terrace lifts its height,
Severing the scene: no, nor thy green alcoves,
Mellini, and gay bow'rs, and golden groves,
Now fix my step—I seek a lovelier scite,
A sacred spot, where a gigantic oak
Spreads its luxuriant boughs, by Time unbroke.
That tree is hallow'd.—Bears it not his name,
Who unto Salem's scenes, her pastoral plain,
Her olive-shaded mount,
Bleak Horeb, and pure Siloa's silver fount,
Gave ... if ought less than voice of prophet strain
Could give ... undying fame?—
'Tis Tasso's oak.—'Twas there, at life's last close,
By years, yet more by woe than years, opprest,
The pilgrim of Onofrio came to rest.
What tho', awhile a sojourner, remov'd
From nature, under gilded roofs, in courts

Where Luxury resorts,
With princes, and proud ladies, passing fair,
The bard had dwelt: his spirit ever lov'd
The breathing of the fresh and fragrant air,
And all that nature in her wild abode
Spreads o'er free solitudes, with song of bird,
Or music sweeter heard,
That with the flowing of the water flow'd:
These, that had charmed Sorrento's child, would yield
To age a child's enjoyment.—Here—his home—
His haunt th'o'ershadowing oak.—Before him tow'r'd
Th' expectant Capitol, whose laurel wreath
Serv'd but to mock th' unconscious brow beneath
The hand of envious Death.—Below him, Rome
Spread out her pomp: he heeded not.—Above,
The sun, in brightness of the blaze of noon,
Flam'd forth: he heeded not:—but when the moon
Stole out, and sweeter breathed the orange grove;
While all in heaven, wherein her orb was seen,
Seem'd, like her light, serene;
And all on earth, whereon her mildness lay,
Calm as her soothing ray,
Then would her votary to that oak repair:
And when he felt the fresh and fragrant breeze
Fan his wan cheek, lifting his silver hair,
It seem'd to him, that with the moon on way

An angel ever went,
To the world-wearied man in mercy sent:
And he would kneel, and hail a spirit there,
Who, looking on his misery, bade it cease:
While the low voice of one, whose soul was peace,
Past from his lip in pray'r.

Queen of the Nations! ... hail!
How beautiful from Latium's level plain
Th' Eternal City seems aloft to soar!
Palace, and tow'r, and fane,
And swelling domes, and votive columns rise.
The crest that proudly bore up Antonine
Lifts its colossal size:
And imag'd wars, that Trajan's shaft entwine,
Sculpture his triumph on the dark-blue skies.
There, Tyber flows, and rolling on its flood
By turbid torrents fed,
Restlessly labours down his yellow bed,
'Mid palaces, and wrecks and solitude.
Here, obelisks, th' Ægyptian's ancient pride,
Whose shadows, journeying with the sun, beheld
How Nile beneath their brow his deluge swell'd;
Then slowly wafted burden'd ocean o'er,
Rested at Rome's command, and tow'r'd on Tyber's shore.

View'st thou yon granite columns, on whose crest
Corinthian grace and grandeur rest?
There, radiant, 'mid the wrecks of time,
In beauty, chaste—simplicity, sublime—
Stands the Pantheon: and uplifts above
The tempest, and the range of earthly storm,
The dome that held the synod of high Jove:
And opening its proud summit on the sky,
Gave to the worshipper no meaner form
To mingle with his bright idolatry,
Than heaven, and its resplendent imag'ry;
The sun a god by day, the moon by night,
The wandering planet, and the fixed star
That darts its beam from far,
Or comet in wide course trailing its lurid light.

But far above its soaring amplitude
Behold another dome,
In the blue element with sun-shine blended.—
Another and the same, o'er awe-struck Rome,
Amid the solitude of space suspended,
Crowns the sublimest fane by mortal trod,
And swells the choral hymn that lauds the living God.—

Sublimest Temple of the living God!
Shall I no more the thrilling transport feel

That o'er me came, when, ere thy court I trod,
I saw, far off, a crown of braided light
Purple thy cross? that purple light, which eve
Seem'd like a glory round thy dome to weave,
When in the peaceful hour, half day, half night,
Th' aerial wonder first entranc'd my view,
And more than mortal power my spirit onward drew.

The sun had thro' a gorgeous canopy
Of gold, of purple, and of azure sheen,
Wheel'd his broad orb, and set with glow serene;
And all was stillness to the ear and eye:
The labours of the day began to cease,
And all without was calm, and all within was peace;
But deep the glow and tumult in my heart,
When on th' eternal flint my foot-step rung:
Thought, fancy, feeling, to one object clung;
Nor joy, nor woe, there claim'd divided part.
On, to the temple; on, I sped my way,
Reckless that Tyber's flood athwart my passage lay.
I saw no flood, no court, no pillar'd zone
That girt it round: I heard no fountain play;
With guideless foot, as sunk the dying day,
I sped impatient on;
And stood beneath the dome, at fall of night,
What time a priest, dim seen, slow pac'd with lonely light.

Else, all was darkness; all mysterious gloom:
Save where, bright flaming round the altar, rose
The silver lamps, that day nor night repose,
And here and there the baldachin illume,
Where the colossal column's brazen frame
Catches on wreathed spires by fits the gliding flame.
And, save those lamps, and that departing light,
Darkness above, beneath me, and around:
No marble glitter'd thro' the gloom profound;
Tomb, statue, column, none disturb'd the sight:
The spirit of devotion fill'd the whole,
And sealing up the lip, held commune with the soul.

Dome! worthiest of the God! if worthy aught
By human genius wrought:
If worthy aught, save the invisible shrine,
The temple of the heart, in whose pure cell,
Illumin'd by thy presence, Spirit divine!
High thoughts celestial dwell.
Dome! worthiest of the God! shall I no more
In silence there adore?
No more with breath suspended, bow to hear
A voice, as of a note of angel song,
In single sweetness stealing on the ear?
Or that rich stream, which swelling as it roll'd
The echoing aisles around,

Shook the responsive dome with measur'd sound?
Or, when the day begins to dim,
Hear from a chord that vibrates in the heart,
The peaceful echo of the vesper hymn;
And feel, the while its last low cadence closes,
How with the dying day the soothed soul reposes?

Shall I no more, unseen,
When, like the rest of death, sleep lies on Rome,
Woo Night's cool breath, th' aerial founts between?
And when with iron mace on tow'r and dome,
Time strikes with thousand hands the midnight bell,
Rousing the pale monk from his sleepless cell,
There view the moon wheel her bright orb serene,
And all her glory spread o'er that unrivall'd scene?

Oh, thou, fair Moon! whose soft and silver light
Beams like a milder day,
Shall I ne'er view again, thou Sun of Night!
Beneath thy beauteous ray,
The temple, and the tow'ring of its dome
Drawn up, methought, by thy celestial might;
As if, on earth, as on the moving main,
Sov'reign alike o'er both, thou held'st unrivall'd reign?

They seem'd to soar; while in thy light array'd,
That fill'd with splendour all the court around,
The crescents of the stately colonnade,
Range within range, by triple pillars crown'd,
Shone, as thy beams, round each successive row,
That softly swell'd, or sank away from sight,
In ceaseless gleam of undulating flow,
Here boldly seen, there furtively betray'd,
Shade chasing light, and light pursuing shade,
Glided like summer waves, when winds forget to blow.
And all the while, rainbows in rainbows wreath'd
Their colours, borrow'd of the lunar beams
Around the rival fountain's pillar'd streams.
They rose and fell; and in their rise and fall
Show'r'd light and music on the eye and ear:
Like playful spirits of the northern sphere,
Waving the banners that lost day recall,
And as they quiver in their native sky,
Breathe a soft voice of flame and melody.

Thou, that amid Aurelian's war-fenc'd bound
Haughtily tow'r'st, making thyself a part
Of Rome's proud guardianship—unlike thou art
To all, far off or nigh, that rise around,
Palace, or dome, or castle turret-crown'd,

Or triumph arch—Cestian! I know thee now:
Thy crest, that tapering from its base, spires up,
Edg'd like a warrior's lance.—But—why that brow
Rais'd as in scorn?—Is it, that thou alone
Pre-eminent above the vale of death,
Thy crest alone, that the low sun illumes,
Lengthens its pointed shade, o'er those beneath
In darkness mouldering: o'er the strangers' tombs,
The unhallow'd graves?—Yet not in thee lies hid,
Not in thy cell, deceitful Pyramid!
Rests the committed urn—thou, to thy trust,
Like those that in the Ægyptian's sea of sand
Have op'd their chambers, thou, alike unjust,
Hast to the spoiler's desecrating hand,
Loos'd the sepulchral dust.

Ah! will they rest
The strangers in the sanctuary of the dead:
They, whose last sleep is in a foreign bed:
Whose sepulchre unblest
Invites the scoffer's tread?
Enough, stern Rome! their grave is delv'd in earth
That smil'd not on their birth:
That they in death stretch'd out a restless hand
In vain ... for that far land:
That when beneath his dart the sufferers lay,
No kindred soothing stole a pang away:

Enough, that on the darkness of their bier
Fell not a kindred tear:
Enough, the taunt that round their hurry'd hearse
The blessing turn'd to curse.
We ask not, Rome! thy priest, nor bell to toll
Peace to the passing soul.
The spirit to the Lord of life is fled,
Reposing on th' atonement of its God.
Yield what our nature claims, earth's covering bed,
Where dust with dust may rest beneath the sod.
Hallow in Death's abode the sabbath of the dead!—

Th' enormous Coliseum's bulk behold:—
Like some lone promontory's storm-rent brow,
That spreads its shadow o'er the deep below,
And back repels the waves in tempests roll'd:
A lonely island in the sea of time;
On whose deep-rooted base
Ages on ages in their ceaseless race
Strike, and break off, and pass in idle foam,
Forgotten: thus, amid the wrecks of Rome,
The Coliseum lifts its brow sublime:
And, looking down on all that moves below,
O'er all the restless range,
Where war and violence have work'd their change,

Tow'rs motionless, and wide around it throws
The shadow of its strength,—its own sublime repose.

Amid the deep arcades, and winding cells,
Eternal silence dwells:
Save when tempestuous whirlwinds, as they sweep
Thro' chasms yawning wide, huge fragments throw
From the rock crest, as from a mountain brow:
Or, mingling with the murmur of the air,
O'er altars, where of yore a shaft of fire
Rose from the martyr's pyre,
The solitary pilgrim breathes a pray'r;
Or grey-stol'd brethren, at the stated time,
In slow procession float, and chant the deep-ton'd rhyme.

Not deeper felt that silence, that suspense
Of being, that here lay on all around,
When agony of pleasure chain'd each sense,
In willing horror bound;
While swarm o'er swarm the gather'd nation hung:
And where round circles widening circles spread,
And arch out-soaring arch
Bath'd in the sun-beams its ambitious head,
Watch'd, as the dying gladiator leant
On his sustaining arm, and o'er the wound,

Whence the large life-drops struggled, lowly bent,
And calmly look'd on earth,
As one who gradual sinks in still repose,
His eye in death to close
On the familiar spot that view'd his blissful birth.

Unlike the actor on a theatre,
Who feigns the wound unfelt, that Roman dy'd:
He too an actor: and when death drew nigh,
By Rome's tremendous silence glorify'd,
Firmly sustain'd his part.
No sound, no gesture, e'er to ear or eye
Betray'd the sufferance of the pang severe,
The hand that grasp'd his heart,
Save the low pant that mark'd his lessening breath,
And one last deep-drawn groan—the agony of death.
Shout, then, and bursting rapture, and the roar
Of myriads—then commingling life-streams ran,
And Rome inebriate drank the blood of man,
And swell'd the human hecatomb with gore
Of birds, and beasts, and monsters of the main;
While death pil'd up the pyre—the slayers on the slain.

All, all are swept away,
Who made the world a gazing theatre,

Th' arena, thundering to their war career.
But thou, enduring monument!
Tho' thy Cyclopean stones in Rome's dark hour
Built up her fort and tow'r;
And palaces, whose gloomy grandeur vast,
O'er her proud temples darkness cast:
Tho' all-destructive Time
Has bow'd thy crest sublime,
And storms, that crush'd the rocks, thy glory rent:
Tho' the unsparing earthquake, in its ire
That shook the pillars of the globe below,
Has rock'd thee to and fro,
Shattering thy mountain base:
Yet, thou, amid the wrecks of human pride,
Hast heav'n and earth defy'd—
The flame-wing'd bolt, and war's insatiate sword:
And view'd around thee perish, race on race,
The Goth, the Hun, the Norman, horde on horde,
Vanish without a trace;
All, all who envy'd Rome in flame
The echo of her name:
While ages roll'd on ages, circling by,
Grav'd on thy forehead, “Rome's eternity.”

It rests not on thy brow.
Tho' glorying in thy strength, at sight of thee,

Rome, widow of the monarch-people, raise
The shadowy sceptre of her sov'reignty;
And of the wreck of wrecks regardless, gaze
Once more exultant on her sev'n-hill'd throne:
Yet thou, forgetful of thy palmy birth,
Thou, proudest trophy of triumphant war,
Shalt lie a wreck on earth;
Stone after stone, the mountain shall descend;
And a vile weed, in dust and darkness sown,
A weed beneath thy base the structure rend,
And reckless of a Coliseum's fall,
O'er the recumbent rock spread its sepulchral pall.

There, in the after time,
When Nature o'er the mouldering wrecks beneath,
Spreads the wild wood, and hangs her fragrant wreath
On bush and bow'r, the mountain pine sublime
The fury of the tempest shall withstand,
Th' umbrageous chestnut her bright pomp expand,
And when the forest mourns its glory gone,
Th' undying oak's dark leaf wave in the wind alone.
And haply on that grave, where Death of yore
In unveil'd horror stood,
And Rome re-echo'd the infuriate roar
Of myriads, as her nation, drunk with blood,

To the stern Furies their libation made,
Far other shout shall ring from Pleasure's festive bow'r.
There in the jocund season's reeling hour,
When the vines lend to earth a purple shade,
Gleam o'er the Appian Way, and bloom
On Scipio's violated tomb,
The hamlets round, exultant at the call,
The nectar of their feasts shall bear away,
Making th' autumnal moon perpetual holiday.

Hark! hear you not the festive shout?
Shouts as of conquerors gathering up the spoil
Bring in the gladsome toil.
I see the ivy-wreath'd, the revel rout:
Earth widely reels around,
Rent heaven yields back the sound:
The roar that swells the choral song, recalls
The orgies of the god—Evoe's festivals.

Such was the shout that rous'd the Menades:
So from their brow was seen to fall
Flow'rs that wreath'd their coronal.
Thus the profusion of their streaming hair
Tangled its glossy darkness on the breeze:
So flash'd their timbrels trembling on the air,

While, with swoln clusters crown'd,
They wav'd the thyrsus round:
And one, far lovelier than the rest,
The dappled fawn-skin floating round her breast,
Tim'd to the cymbals' clash her step and song,
And led the panther car
That bore in youth's bright bloom the God of Joy along.