The poetical works of Samuel Rogers :: :: University of Virginia Library

In this Poem the Author has endeavoured to describe his Journey through a beautiful country; and it may not perhaps be uninteresting to those who have learnt to live in Past Times as well as Present, and whose minds are familiar with the Events and the People that have rendered Italy so illustrious; for, wherever he came, he could not but remember; nor is he conscious of having slept over any ground that has been “dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue.”

Much of it was originally published as it was written on the spot. He has since, on a second visit, revised it throughout, and added many stories from the old Chroniclers and many Notes illustrative of the manners, customs, and superstitions there.

THE LAKE OF GENEVA.

Day glimmered in the east, and the white Moon
Hung like a vapour in the cloudless sky,
Yet visible, when on my way I went,
Glad to be gone; a pilgrim from the North,
Now more and more attracted as I drew
Nearer and nearer. Ere the artizan
Had from his window leant, drowsy, half-clad,
To snuff the morn, or the caged lark poured forth,
From his green sod upspringing as to heaven,
(His tuneful bill o'erflowing with a song
Old in the days of Homer, and his wings

189

With transport quivering) on my way I went,
Thy gates, Geneva, swinging heavily,
Thy gates so slow to open, swift to shut;
As on that Sabbath-eve when He arrived,
Whose name is now thy glory, now by thee,
Such virtue dwells in those small syllables,
Inscribed to consecrate the narrow street,
His birth-place,—when, but one short step too late,
In his despair, as though the die were cast,
He flung him down to weep, and wept till dawn;
Then rose to go, a wanderer through the world.

'Tis not a tale that every hour brings with it.
Yet at a City-gate, from time to time,
Much may be learnt; nor, London, least at thine,
Thy hive the busiest, greatest of them all,
Gathering, enlarging still. Let us stand by,
And note who passes. Here comes one, a Youth,
Glowing with pride, the pride of conscious power,
A Chatterton—in thought admired, caressed,
And crowned like Petrarch in the Capitol;
Ere long to die, to fall by his own hand,
And fester with the vilest. Here come two,
Less feverish, less exalted—soon to part,
A Garrick and a Johnson; Wealth and Fame
Awaiting one, even at the gate; Neglect
And Want the other. But what multitudes,
Urged by the love of change, and, like myself,
Adventurous, careless of to-morrow's fare,
Press on—though but a rill entering the sea,
Entering and lost! Our task would never end.

Day glimmered and I went, a gentle breeze
Ruffling the Leman Lake. Wave after wave,
If such they might be called, dashed as in sport,

190

Not anger, with the pebbles on the beach
Making wild music, and far westward caught
The sun-beam—where, alone and as entranced,
Counting the hours, the fisher in his skiff
Lay with his circular and dotted line
On the bright waters. When the heart of man
Is light with hope, all things are sure to please;
And soon a passage-boat swept gaily by,
Laden with peasant-girls and fruits and flowers,
And many a chanticleer and partlet caged
For Vevey's market-place—a motley group
Seen through the silvery haze. But soon 'twas gone.
The shifting sail flapped idly to and fro,
Then bore them off. I am not one of those
So dead to all things in this visible world,
So wondrously profound, as to move on
In the sweet light of heaven, like him of old
(His name is justly in the Calendar)
Who through the day pursued this pleasant path
That winds beside the mirror of all beauty,
And, when at eve his fellow-pilgrims sate,
Discoursing of the lake, asked where it was.
They marvelled, as they might; and so must all,
Seeing what now I saw: for now 'twas day,
And the bright Sun was in the firmament,
A thousand shadows of a thousand hues
Chequering the clear expanse. Awhile his orb
Hung o'er thy trackless fields of snow, Mont Blanc,
Thy seas of ice and ice-built promontories,
That change their shapes for ever as in sport;
Then travelled onward and went down behind
The pine-clad heights of Jura, lighting up

191

The woodman's casement, and perchance his axe
Borne homeward through the forest in his hand;
And, on the edge of some o'erhanging cliff,
That dungeon-fortress never to be named,
Where, like a lion taken in the toils,
Toussaint breathed out his brave and generous spirit.
Little did He, who sent him there to die,
Think, when he gave the word, that he himself,
Great as he was, the greatest among men,
Should in like manner be so soon conveyed
Athwart the deep,—and to a rock so small
Amid the countless multitude of waves,
That ships have gone and sought it, and returned,
Saying it was not!

MEILLERIE.

These grey majestic cliffs that tower to heaven,
These glimmering glades and open chestnut groves,
That echo to the heifer's wandering bell,
Or woodman's axe, or steersman's song beneath,
As on he urges his fir-laden bark,
Or shout of goat-herd boy above them all,
Who loves not? And who blesses not the light,
When thro' some loop-hole he surveys the lake
Blue as a sapphire-stone, and richly set
With chateaux, villages, and village-spires,
Orchards and vineyards, alps and alpine snows?
Here would I dwell; nor visit, but in thought,
Ferney far south, silent and empty now

192

As now thy once-luxurious bowers, Ripaille;
Vevey, so long an exiled Patriot's home;
Or Chillon's dungeon-floors beneath the wave,
Channelled and worn by pacing to and fro;
Lausanne, where Gibbon in his sheltered walk
Nightly called up the Shade of ancient Rome;
Or Coppet, and that dark untrodden grove
Sacred to Virtue, and a daughter's tears!
Here would I dwell, forgetting and forgot;
And oft methinks (of such strange potency
The spells that Genius scatters where he will)
Oft should I wander forth like one in search,
And say, half-dreaming, “Here St. Preux has stood!”
Then turn and gaze on Clarens.

Yet there is,
Within an eagle's flight and less, a scene
Still nobler if not fairer (once again
Would I behold it ere these eyes are closed,
For I can say; “I also have been there!”)
That Sacred Lake withdrawn among the hills,

193

Its depth of waters flanked as with a wall
Built by the Giant-race before the flood;
Where not a cross or chapel but inspires
Holy delight, lifting our thoughts to God
From God-like men,—men in a barbarous age
That dared assert their birth-right, and displayed
Deeds half-divine, returning good for ill;
That in the desert sowed the seeds of life,
Framing a band of small Republics there,
Which still exist, the envy of the world!
Who would not land in each, and tread the ground;
Land where Tell leaped ashore; and climb to drink
Of the three hallowed fountains? He that does,
Comes back the better; and relates at home
That he was met and greeted by a race
Such as he read of in his boyish days;
Such as Miltiades at Marathon
Led, when he chased the Persians to their ships.

There, while the well-known boat is heaving in,
Piled with rude merchandise, or launching forth,
Thronged with wild cattle for Italian fairs,
There in the sunshine, 'mid their native snows,
Children, let loose from school, contend to use
The cross-bow of their fathers; and o'er-run
The rocky field where all, in every age,
Assembling sit, like one great family,
Forming alliances, enacting laws;
Each cliff and head-land and green promontory
Graven to their eyes with records of the past
That prompt to hero-worship, and excite
Even in the least, the lowliest, as he toils,
A reverence no where else or felt or feigned;
Their chronicler great Nature; and the volume
Vast as her works—above, below, around!

194

The fisher on thy beach, Thermopylæ,
Asks of the lettered stranger why he came,
First from his lips to learn the glorious truth!
And who that whets his scythe in Runnemede,
Though but for them a slave, recalls to mind
The barons in array, with their great charter?
Among the everlasting Alps alone,
There to burn on as in a sanctuary,
Bright and unsullied lives th' ethereal flame;
And 'mid those scenes unchanged, unchangeable,
Why should it ever die?

ST. MAURICE.

Still by the Leman Lake, for many a mile,
Among those venerable trees I went,
Where damsels sit and weave their fishing-nets
Singing some national song by the way-side.
But now the fly was gone, the gnat was come;
Now glimmering lights from cottage-windows broke.
'Twas dusk; and, journeying upward by the Rhone,
That there came down, a torrent from the Alps,
I entered where a key unlocks a kingdom;
The road and river, as they wind along,
Filling the mountain-pass. There, till a ray
Glanced through my lattice, and the householdstir
Warned me to rise, to rise and to depart,
A stir unusual, and accompanied
With many a tuning of rude instruments,
And many a laugh that augured coming pleasure,
Mine host's fair daughter for the nuptial rite

195

And nuptial feast attiring—there I slept,
And in my dreams wandered once more, well pleased.
But now a charm was on the rocks and woods
And waters; for, methought, I was with those
I had at morn and even wished for there.

THE GREAT ST. BERNARD.

Night was again descending, when my mule,
That all day long had climbed among the clouds,
Higher and higher still, as by a stair
Let down from heaven itself, transporting me,
Stopped, to the joy of both, at that low door,
That door which ever, as self-opened, moves
To them that knock, and nightly sends abroad
Ministering Spirits. Lying on the watch,
Two dogs of grave demeanour welcomed me,
All meekness, gentleness, though large of limb;
And a lay-brother of the Hospital,
Who, as we toiled below, had heard by fits
The distant echoes gaining on his ear,
Came and held fast my stirrup in his hand
While I alighted. Long could I have stood,
With a religious awe contemplating
That House, the highest in the Ancient World,
And destined to perform from age to age
The noblest service, welcoming as guests
All of all nations and of every faith;
A temple, sacred to Humanity!
It was a pile of simplest masonry,
With narrow windows and vast buttresses,

196

Built to endure the shocks of time and chance;
Yet showing many a rent, as well it might,
Warred on for ever by the elements,
And in an evil day, nor long ago,
By violent men—when on the mountain-top
The French and Austrian banners met in conflict.

On the same rock beside it stood the church,
Reft of its cross, not of its sanctity;
The vesper-bell, for 'twas the vesper-hour,
Duly proclaiming through the wilderness,
“All ye who hear, whatever be your work,
Stop for an instant—move your lips in prayer!”
And, just beneath it, in that dreary dale,
If dale it might be called, so near to heaven,
A little lake, where never fish leaped up,
Lay like a spot of ink amid the snow;
A star, the only one in that small sky,
On its dead surface glimmering. 'Twas a place
Resembling nothing I had left behind,
As if all worldly ties were now dissolved;—
And, to incline the mind still more to thought,
To thought and sadness, on the eastern shore
Under a beetling cliff stood half in gloom
A lonely chapel destined for the dead,
For such as, having wandered from their way,
Had perished miserably. Side by side,
Within they lie, a mournful company,
All in their shrouds, no earth to cover them;
Their features full of life yet motionless
In the broad day, nor soon to suffer change,
Though the barred windows, barred against the wolf,
Are always open!—But the North blew cold;
And, bidden to a spare but cheerful meal,
I sate among the holy brotherhood
At their long board. The fare indeed was such
As is prescribed on days of abstinence,

197

But might have pleased a nicer taste than mine;
And through the floor came up, an ancient crone
Serving unseen below; while from the roof
(The roof, the floor, the walls of native fir,)
A lamp hung flickering, such as loves to fling
Its partial light on Apostolic heads,
And sheds a grace on all. Theirs Time as yet
Had changed not. Some were almost in the prime;
Nor was a brow o'ercast. Seen as they sate,
Ranged round their ample hearth-stone in an hour
Of rest, they were as gay, as free from guile,
As children; answering, and at once, to all
The gentler impulses, to pleasure, mirth;
Mingling, at intervals, with rational talk
Music; and gathering news from them that came,
As of some other world. But when the storm
Rose, and the snow rolled on in ocean-waves,
When on his face the experienced traveller fell,
Sheltering his lips and nostrils with his hands,
Then all was changed; and, sallying with their pack
Into that blank of nature, they became
Unearthly beings. “Anselm, higher up,
Just where it drifts, a dog howls loud and long,
And now, as guided by a voice from Heaven,
Digs with his feet. That noble vehemence
Whose can it be, but his who never erred?
A man lies underneath! Let us to work!—
But who descends Mont Velan? 'Tis La Croix.
Away, away! if not, alas, too late.
Homeward he drags an old man and a boy,
Faltering and falling, and but half awaked,
Asking to sleep again.” Such their discourse.

Oft has a venerable roof received me;

198

St. Bruno's once —where, when the winds were hushed,
Nor from the cataract the voice came up,
You might have heard the mole work underground,
So great the stillness there; none seen throughout,
Save when from rock to rock a hermit crossed
By some rude bridge—or one at midnight tolled
To matins, and white habits, issuing forth,
Glided along those aisles interminable,
All, all observant of the sacred law
Of Silence. Nor is that sequestered spot,
Once called “Sweet Waters,” now “The Shady Vale,”
To me unknown; that house so rich of old,
So courteous, and, by two that passed that way,
Amply requited with immortal verse,
The Poet's payment.—But, among them all,
None can with this compare, the dangerous seat
Of generous, active Virtue. What though Frost
Reign everlastingly, and ice and snow
Thaw not, but gather—there is that within,
Which, where it comes, makes Summer; and, in thought,
Oft am I sitting on the bench beneath
Their garden-plot, where all that vegetates
Is but some scanty lettuce, to observe
Those from the South ascending, every step
As though it were their last,—and instantly
Restored, renewed, advancing as with songs,
Soon as they see, turning a lofty crag,
That plain, that modest structure, promising
Bread to the hungry, to the weary rest.

199

THE DESCENT.

My mule refreshed—and, let the truth be told,
He was nor dull nor contradictory,
But patient, diligent, and sure of foot,
Shunning the loose stone on the precipice,
Snorting suspicion while with sight, smell, touch,
Trying, detecting, where the surface smiled;
And with deliberate courage sliding down,
Where in his sledge the Laplander had turned
With looks aghast—my mule refreshed, his bells
Gingled once more, the signal to depart,
And we set out in the grey light of dawn,
Descending rapidly—by waterfalls
Fast-frozen, and among huge blocks of ice
That in their long career had stopped mid-way.
At length, unchecked, unbidden, he stood still;
And all his bells were muffled. Then my Guide,
Lowering his voice, addressed me: “Thro' this Gap
On and say nothing—lest a word, a breath
Bring down a winter's snow—enough to whelm
The armed files that, night and day, were seen
Winding from cliff to cliff in loose array
To conquer at Marengo. Though long since,
Well I remember how I met them here,
As the sun set far down, purpling the west;
And how Napoleon, he himself, no less,
Wrapt in his cloak—I could not be deceived—
Reined in his horse, and asked me, as I passed,
How far 'twas to St. Remi. Where the rock
Juts forward, and the road, crumbling away,
Narrows almost to nothing at the base,

200

'Twas there; and down along the brink he led
To Victory!—Desaix, who turned the scale,
Leaving his life-blood in that famous field,
(When the clouds break, we may discern the spot
In the blue haze) sleeps, as you saw at dawn,
Just where we entered, in the Hospital-church.”
So saying, for a while he held his peace,
Awe-struck beneath that dreadful Canopy;
But soon, the danger passed, launched forth again.

JORASSE.

Jorasse was in his three-and-twentieth year;
Graceful and active as a stag just roused;
Gentle withal, and pleasant in his speech,
Yet seldom seen to smile. He had grown up
Among the hunters of the Higher Alps;
Had caught their starts and fits of thoughtfulness,
Their haggard looks, and strange soliloquies,
Arising (so say they that dwell below)
From frequent dealings with the Mountain-Spirits.
But other ways had taught him better things;
And now he numbered, marching by my side,
The great, the learned, that with him had crossed
The frozen tract—with him familiarly
Thro' the rough day and rougher night conversed
In many a chalet round the Peak of Terror,
Round Tacul, Tour, Well-horn, and Rosenlau,
And Her, whose throne is inaccessible,
Who sits, withdrawn in virgin-majesty,

201

Nor oft unveils. Anon an Avalanche
Rolled its long thunder; and a sudden crash,
Sharp and metallic, to the startled ear
Told that far-down a continent of Ice
Had burst in twain. But he had now begun;
And with what transport he recalled the hour
When, to deserve, to win his blooming bride,
Madeleine of Annecy, to his feet he bound
The iron crampons, and, ascending, trod
The Upper Realms of Frost; then, by a cord
Let half-way down, entered a grot star-bright,
And gathered from above, below, around,
The pointed crystals!—Once, nor long before,
(Thus did his tongue run on, fast as his feet,
And with an eloquence that Nature gives
To all her children—breaking off by starts
Into the harsh and rude, oft as the Mule
Drew his displeasure), once, nor long before,
Alone at day-break on the Mettenberg,
He slipped and fell; and, through a fearful cleft
Gliding insensibly from ledge to ledge,
From deep to deeper and to deeper still,
Went to the Under-world! Long-while he lay
Upon his rugged bed—then waked like one
Wishing to sleep again and sleep for ever!
For, looking round, he saw or thought he saw
Innumerable branches of a Cave,
Winding beneath that solid Crust of Ice;
With here and there a rent that showed the stars!
What then, alas, was left him but to die?
What else in those immeasurable chambers,

202

Strewn with the bones of miserable men,
Lost like himself? Yet must he wander on,
Till cold and hunger set his spirit free!
And, rising, he began his dreary round;
When hark, the noise as of some mighty Flood
Working its way to light! Back he withdrew,
But soon returned, and, fearless from despair,
Dashed down the dismal Channel; and all day,
If day could be where utter darkness was,
Travelled incessantly; the craggy roof
Just over-head, and the impetuous waves,
Nor broad nor deep, yet with a giant's strength,
Lashing him on. At last as in a pool
The water slept; a pool sullen, profound,
Where, if a billow chanced to heave and swell,
It broke not; and the roof, descending, lay
Flat on the surface. Statue-like he stood,
His journey ended; when a ray divine
Shot through his soul, Breathing a prayer to Her
Whose ears are never shut, the blessed Virgin,
He plunged and swam—and in an instant rose,
The barrier passed, in sunshine! Through a vale,
Such as in Arcady, where many a thatch
Gleams thro' the trees, half-seen and half-embowered,
Glittering the river ran; and on the bank
The Young were dancing ('twas a festival-day)
All in their best attire. There first he saw
His Madeleine. In the crowd she stood to hear,
When all drew round, inquiring; and her face,
Seen behind all and varying, as he spoke,
With hope and fear and generous sympathy,
Subdued him. From that very hour he loved.

The tale was long, but coming to a close,
When his wild eyes flashed fire; and, all forgot,
He listened and looked up. I looked up too;
And twice there came a hiss that thro' me thrilled!

203

'Twas heard no more. A Chamois on the cliff
Had roused his fellows with that cry of fear,
And all were gone. But now the theme was changed;
And he recounted his hair-breadth escapes,
When with his friend, Hubert of Bionnay,
(His ancient carbine from his shoulder slung,
His axe to hew a stair-way in the ice)
He tracked their wanderings. By a cloud surprised,
Where the next step had plunged them into air,
Long had they stood, locked in each other's arms,
Amid the gulfs that yawned to swallow them;
Each guarding each through many a freezing hour,
As on some temple's highest pinnacle,
From treacherous slumber. Oh, it was a sport
Dearer than life, and but with life relinquished!
“My sire, my grandsire died among these wilds.
As for myself,” he cried, and he held forth
His wallet in his hand, “this do I call
My winding-sheet—for I shall have no other!”

And he spoke truth. Within a little month
He lay among these awful solitudes,
('Twas on a glacier—half-way up to heaven)
Taking his final rest. Long did his wife,
Suckling her babe, her only one, look out
The way he went at parting, but he came not;
Long fear to close her eyes, from dusk till dawn
Plying her distaff through the silent hours,
Lest he appear before her—lest in sleep,
If sleep steal on, he come as all are wont,
Frozen and ghastly blue or black with gore,
To plead for the last rite.

204

MARGUERITE DE TOURS.

Now the grey granite, starting through the snow,
Discovered many a variegated moss
That to the pilgrim resting on his staff
Shadows out capes and islands; and ere long
Numberless flowers, such as disdain to live
In lower regions, and delighted drink
The clouds before they fall, flowers of all hues,
With their diminutive leaves covered the ground.
There, turning by a venerable larch,
Shivered in two yet most majestical
With his long level branches, we observed
A human figure sitting on a stone
Far down by the way-side—just where the rock
Is riven asunder, and the Evil One
Has bridged the gulf, a wondrous monument
Built in one night, from which the flood beneath,
Raging along, all foam, is seen not heard,
And seen as motionless!—Nearer we drew;
And lo, a woman young and delicate,
Wrapt in a russet cloak from head to foot,
Her eyes cast down, her cheek upon her hand,
In deepest thought. Over her tresses fair,
Young as she was, she wore the matron-cap;
And, as we judged, not many moons would change
Ere she became a mother. Pale she looked,
Yet cheerful; though, methought, once, if not twice,

205

She wiped away a tear that would be coming;
And in those moments her small hat of straw,
Worn on one side, and glittering with a band
Of silk and gold, but ill concealed a face
Not soon to be forgotten. Rising up
On our approach, she travelled slowly on;
And my companion, long before we met,
Knew, and ran down to greet her.—She was born
(Such was her artless tale, told with fresh tears)
In Val d'Aosta; and an Alpine stream,
Leaping from crag to crag in its short course
To join the Dora, turned her father's mill.
There did she blossom, till a Valaisan,
A townsman of Martigny, won her heart,
Much to the old man's grief. Long he refused,
Loth to be left; disconsolate at the thought.
She was his only one, his link to life;
And in despair—year after year gone by—
One summer-morn, they stole a match and fled.
The act was sudden; and, when far away,
Her spirit had misgivings. Then, full oft,
She pictured to herself that aged face
Sickly and wan, in sorrow, not in wrath;
And, when at last she heard his hour was near,
Went forth unseen, and, burdened as she was,
Crossed the high Alps on foot to ask forgiveness,
And hold him to her heart before he died.
Her task was done. She had fulfilled her wish,
And now was on her way, rejoicing, weeping.
A frame like hers had suffered; but her love
Was strong within her; and right on she went,
Fearing no ill. May all good Angels guard her!
And should I once again, as once I may,
Visit Martigny, I will not forget
Thy hospitable roof, Marguerite de Tours;
Thy sign the silver swan. Heaven prosper thee!

206

THE BROTHERS.

In the same hour the breath of life receiving,
They came together and were beautiful;
But, as they slumbered in their mother's lap,
How mournful was their beauty! She would sit,
And look and weep, and look and weep again;
For Nature had but half her work achieved,
Denying, like a step-dame, to the babes
Her noblest gifts; denying speech to one,
And to the other—reason.

But at length
(Seven years gone by, seven melancholy years)
Another came, as fair and fairer still;
And then, how anxiously the mother watched
Till reason dawned and speech declared itself!
Reason and speech were his; and down she knelt,
Clasping her hands in silent ecstasy.

On the hill-side, where still their cottage stands,
('Tis near the upper falls in Lauterbrunn;
For there I sheltered now, their frugal hearth
Blazing with mountain-pine when I appeared,
And there, as round they sate, I heard their story)
On the hill-side, among the cataracts,
In happy ignorance the children played;
Alike unconscious, through their cloudless day,
Of what they had and had not; every where
Gathering rock-flowers; or, with their utmost might,
Loosening the fragment from the precipice,
And, as it tumbled, listening for the plunge;
Yet, as by instinct, at the customed hour

207

Returning; the two eldest, step by step,
Lifting along, and with the tenderest care,
Their infant brother.

Once the hour was past;
And, when She sought, she sought and could not find;
And when she found—Where was the little one?
Alas, they answered not; yet still she asked,
Still in her grief forgetting.

With a scream,
Such as an Eagle sends forth when he soars,
A scream that through the wild scatters dismay,
The idiot-boy looked up into the sky,
And leaped and laughed aloud and leaped again;
As if he wished to follow in its flight
Something just gone, and gone from earth to heaven:
While he, whose every gesture, every look
Went to the heart, for from the heart it came,
He who nor spoke nor heard—all things to him,
Day after day, as silent as the grave,
(To him unknown the melody of birds,
Of waters—and the voice that should have soothed
His infant sorrows, singing him to sleep)
Fled to her mantle as for refuge there,
And, as at once o'ercome with fear and grief,
Covered his head and wept. A dreadful thought
Flashed thro' her brain. “Has not some bird of prey,
Thirsting to dip his beak in innocent blood—
It must, it must be so!”—And so it was.

There was an Eagle that had long acquired
Absolute sway, the lord of a domain
Savage, sublime; nor from the hills alone
Gathering large tribute, but from every vale;
Making the ewe, whene'er he deigned to stoop,

208

Bleat for the lamb. Great was the recompense
Assured to him who laid the tyrant low;
And near his nest in that eventful hour,
Calmly and patiently, a hunter stood,
A hunter, as it chanced, of old renown,
And, as it chanced, their father.

In the South
A speck appeared, enlarging; and ere long,
As on his journey to the golden sun,
Upward He came, the Felon in his flight,
Ascending through the congregated clouds,
That, like a dark and troubled sea, obscured
The world beneath.—“But what is in his grasp?
Ha! 'tis a child—and may it not be ours?
I dare not, cannot; and yet why forbear,
When, if it lives, a cruel death awaits it?—
May He who winged the shaft when Tell stood forth
And shot the apple from the youngling's head,
Grant me the strength, the courage!” As he spoke,
He aimed, he fired; and at his feet they fell,
The Eagle and the child—the child unhurt—
Tho', such the grasp, not even in death relinquished.

209

THE ALPS.

Who first beholds those everlasting clouds,
Seed-time and harvest, morning noon and night,
Still where they were, steadfast, immovable;
Those mighty hills, so shadowy, so sublime,
As rather to belong to Heaven than Earth—
But instantly receives into his soul
A sense, a feeling that he loses not,
A something that informs him 'tis an hour,
Whence he may date henceforward and for ever.

To me they seemed the barriers of a World,
Saying, Thus far, no further! and as o'er
The level plain I travelled silently,
Nearing them more and more, day after day,
My wandering thoughts my only company,
And they before me still—oft as I looked,
A strange delight was mine, mingled with fear,
A wonder as at things I had not heard of!
And still and still I felt as if I gazed
For the first time!—Great was the tumult there,
Deafening the din, when in barbaric pomp
The Carthaginian on his march to Rome
Entered their fastnesses. Trampling the snows,
The war-horse reared; and the towered elephant
Upturned his trunk into the murky sky,
Then tumbled headlong, swallowed up and lost,
He and his rider.

Now the scene is changed;
And o'er the Simplon, o'er the Splügen winds
A path of pleasure. Like a silver zone
Flung about carelessly, it shines afar,

210

Catching the eye in many a broken link,
In many a turn and traverse as it glides;
And oft above and oft below appears,
Seen o'er the wall by him who journeys up,
As if it were another, through the wild
Leading along he knows not whence or whither.
Yet through its fairy-course, go where it will,
The torrent stops it not, the rugged rock
Opens and lets it in; and on it runs,
Winning its easy way from clime to clime
Thro' glens locked up before.—Not such my path!
The very path for them that dare defy
Danger, nor shrink, wear he what shape he will;
That o'er the caldron, when the flood boils up,
Hang as in air, gazing and shuddering on
Till fascination comes and the brain turns!
The very path for them, that list, to choose
Where best to plant a monumental cross,
And live in story like Empedocles;
A track for heroes, such as he who came,
Ere long, to win, to wear the Iron Crown;
And (if aright I judge from what I felt
Over the Drance, just where the Abbot fell,
Rolled downward in an after-dinner's sleep)
The same as Hannibal's. But now 'tis passed,
That turbulent Chaos; and the promised land
Lies at my feet in all its loveliness!
To him who starts up from a terrible dream,
And lo, the sun is shining, and the lark
Singing aloud for joy, to him is not
Such sudden ravishment as now I feel
At the first glimpses of fair Italy.

211

COMO.

I love to sail along the Larian Lake
Under the shore—though not, where'er he dwelt,
To visit Pliny; not, in loose attire,
When from the bath or from the tennis-court,
To catch him musing in his plane-tree walk,
Or angling from his window: and, in truth,
Could I recall the ages past and play
The fool with Time, I should perhaps reserve
My leisure for Catullus on his Lake,
Though to fare worse, or Virgil at his farm
A little further on the way to Mantua.
But such things cannot be. So I sit still,
And let the boatman shift his little sail,
His sail so forked and so swallow-like,
Well-pleased with all that comes. The morning-air
Plays on my cheek how gently, flinging round
A silvery gleam: and now the purple mists
Rise like a curtain; now the sun looks out,
Filling, o'erflowing with his glorious light
This noble amphitheatre of hills;
And now appear as on a phosphor-sea
Numberless barks, from Milan, from Pavía;
Some sailing up, some down, and some at rest,
Lading, unlading at that small port-town
Under the promontory—its tall tower

212

And long flat roofs, just such as Gaspar drew,
Caught by a sun-beam slanting through a cloud;
A quay-like scene, glittering and full of life,
And doubled by reflection.

What delight,
After so long a sojourn in the wild,
To hear once more the peasant at his work!
—But in a clime like this where is he not?
Along the shores, among the hills 'tis now
The hey-day of the Vintage; all abroad,
But most the young and of the gentler sex,
Busy in gathering; all among the vines,
Some on the ladder and some underneath,
Filling their baskets of green wicker-work,
While many a canzonet and frolic laugh
Come thro' the leaves; the vines in light festoons
From tree to tree, the trees in avenues,
And every avenue a covered walk
Hung with black clusters. 'Tis enough to make
The sad man merry, the benevolent one
Melt into tears—so general is the joy!
While up and down the cliffs, over the lake,
Wains oxen-drawn and panniered mules are seen,
Laden with grapes and dropping rosy wine.

Here I received from thee, Basílico,
One of those courtesies so sweet, so rare!
When, as I rambled through thy vineyard-ground
On the hill-side, thy little son was sent,
Charged with a bunch almost as big as he,
To press it on the stranger. May thy vats
O'erflow, and he, thy willing gift-bearer,
Live to become a giver; and, at length,
When thou art full of honour and wouldst rest,
The staff of thine old age!

In a strange land
Such things, however trivial, reach the heart,
And thro' the heart the head, clearing away

213

The narrow notions that grow up at home,
And in their place grafting Good-Will to All.
At least I found it so, nor less at eve,
When, bidden as a lonely traveller,
('Twas by a little boat that gave me chase
With oar and sail, as homeward-bound I crossed
The bay of Tramezzine,) right readily
I turned my prow and followed, landing soon
Where steps of purest marble met the wave;
Where, through the trellises and corridors,
Soft music came as from Armida's palace,
Breathing enchantment o'er the woods and waters;
And thro' a bright pavilion, bright as day,
Forms such as hers were flitting, lost among
Such as of old in sober pomp swept by,
Such as adorn the triumphs and the feasts
By Paolo painted; where a Fairy-Queen,
That night her birth-night, from her throne received
(Young as she was, no floweret in her crown,
Hyacinth or rose, so fair and fresh as she)
Our willing vows, and by the fountain-side
Led in the dance, disporting as she pleased,
Under a starry sky—while I looked on,
As in a glade of Cashmere or Shiràz,
Reclining, quenching my sherbet in snow,
And reading in the eyes that sparkled round,
The thousand love-adventures written there.

Can I forget—no never, such a scene
So full of witchery. Night lingered still,
When with a dying breeze I left Bellaggio;
But the strain followed me; and still I saw
Thy smile, Angelica; and still I heard
Thy voice—once and again bidding adieu.

214

BERGAMO.

The song was one that I had heard before,
But where I knew not. It inclined to sadness;
And, turning round from the delicious fare
My landlord's little daughter Barbara
Had from her apron just rolled out before me,
Figs and rock-melons—at the door I saw
Two boys of lively aspect. Peasant-like
They were, and poorly clad, but not unskilled;
With their small voices and an old guitar
Winning their way to my unguarded heart
In that, the only universal tongue.
But soon they changed the measure, entering on
A pleasant dialogue of sweet and sour,
A war of words, with looks and gestures waged
Between Trappanti and his ancient dame,
Mona Lucilia. To and fro it went;
While many a titter on the stairs was heard,
And Barbara's among them. When it ceased,
Their dark eyes flashed no longer, yet, methought,
In many a glance as from the soul, disclosed
More than enough to serve them. Far or near,
Few looked not for their coming ere they came,
Few, when they went, but looked till they were gone;
And not a matron, sitting at her wheel,
But could repeat their story. Twins they were,
And orphans, as I learnt, cast on the world;
Their parents lost in an old ferry-boat
That, three years since, last Martinmas, went down,

215

Crossing the rough Benacus.—May they live
Blameless and happy—rich they cannot be,
Like him who, in the days of Minstrelsy,
Came in a beggar's weeds to Petrarch's door,
Asking, beseeching for a lay to sing,
And soon in silk (such then the power of song)
Returned to thank him; or like that old man,
Old, not in heart, who by the torrent-side
Descending from the Tyrol, as Night fell,
Knocked at a City-gate near the hill-foot,
The gate that bore so long, sculptured in stone,
An eagle on a ladder, and at once
Found welcome—nightly in the bannered hall
Tuning his harp to tales of Chivalry
Before the great Mastino, and his guests,
The three-and-twenty kings, by adverse fate,
By war or treason or domestic strife,
Reft of their kingdoms, friendless, shelterless,
And living on his bounty.

216

But who comes,
Brushing the floor with what was once, methinks,
A hat of ceremony? On he glides,
Slip-shod, ungartered; his long suit of black
Dingy, thread-bare, tho', patch by patch, renewed
Till it has almost ceased to be the same.
At length arrived, and with a shrug that pleads
“'Tis my necessity!” he stops and speaks,
Screwing a smile into his dinnerless face.
“Blame not a Poet, Signor, for his zeal—
When all are on the wing, who would be last?
The splendour of thy name has gone before thee;
And Italy from sea to sea exults,
As well indeed she may! But I transgress.
He, who has known the weight of Praise himself,
Should spare another.” Saying so, he laid
His sonnet, an impromptu, at my feet,
(If his, then Petrarch must have stolen it from him)
And bowed and left me; in his hollow hand
Receiving my small tribute, a zecchine,
Unconsciously, as doctors do their fees.

My omelet, and a flagon of hill-wine,
Pure as the virgin-spring, had happily
Fled from all eyes; or, in a waking dream,
I might have sat as many a great man has,
And many a small, like him of Santillane,
Bartering my bread and salt for empty praise.

217

ITALY.

Am I in Italy? Is this the Mincius?
Are those the distant turrets of Verona?
And shall I sup where Juliet at the Masque
Saw her loved Montague, and now sleeps by him?
Such questions hourly do I ask myself;
And not a stone, in a cross-way, inscribed
“To Mantua”—“To Ferrara”—but excites
Surprise, and doubt, and self-congratulation.

O Italy, how beautiful thou art!
Yet I could weep—for thou art lying, alas,
Low in the dust; and we admire thee now
As we admire the beautiful in death.
Thine was a dangerous gift, when thou wert born,
The gift of Beauty. Would thou hadst it not;
Or wert as once, awing the caitiffs vile
That now beset thee, making thee their slave!
Would they had loved thee less, or feared thee more!
—But why despair? Twice hast thou lived already;
Twice shone among the nations of the world,
As the sun shines among the lesser lights
Of heaven; and shalt again. The hour shall come,
When they who think to bind the ethereal spirit,
Who, like the eagle cowering o'er his prey,
Watch with quick eye, and strike and strike again
If but a sinew vibrate, shall confess
Their wisdom folly. Even now the flame
Bursts forth where once it burnt so gloriously,
And, dying, left a splendour like the day,
That like the day diffused itself, and still

218

Blesses the earth—the light of genius, virtue,
Greatness in thought and act, contempt of death,
God-like example. Echoes that have slept
Since Athens, Lacedæmon, were Themselves,
Since men invoked “By those in Marathon!”
Awake along the Ægean; and the dead,
They of that sacred shore, have heard the call,
And thro' the ranks, from wing to wing, are seen
Moving as once they were—instead of rage
Breathing deliberate valour.

COLL'ALTO.

In this neglected mirror (the broad frame
Of massy silver serves to testify
That many a noble matron of the house
Has sat before it) once, alas, was seen
What led to many sorrows. From that time
The bat came hither for a sleeping place;
And he, who cursed another in his heart,
Said, ‘Be thy dwelling, thro' the day and night,
Shunned like Coll'alto.’”—'Twas in that old Pile,
Which flanks the cliff with its grey battlements
Flung here and there, and, like an eagle's nest,
Hangs in the Trevisan, that thus the Steward,
Shaking his locks, the few that Time had left,
Addressed me, as we entered what was called
“My Lady's Chamber.” On the walls, the chairs,
Much yet remained of the rich tapestry;
Much of the adventures of Sir Lancelot
In the green glades of some enchanted wood.
The toilet-table was of silver wrought,
Florentine Art, when Florence was renowned;

219

A gay confusion of the elements,
Dolphins and boys, and shells and fruits and flowers:
And from the ceiling, in his gilded cage,
Hung a small bird of curious workmanship,
That, when his Mistress bade him, would unfold
(So says the babbling Dame, Tradition, there)
His emerald-wings, and sing and sing again
The song that pleased her. While I stood and looked,
A gleam of day yet lingering in the West,
The Steward went on. “She had ('tis now long since)
A gentle serving-maid, the fair Cristine,
Fair as a lily, and as spotless too;
None so admired, beloved. They had grown up
As play-fellows; and some there were, that said,
Some that knew much, discoursing of Cristine,
‘She is not what she seems.’ When unrequired,
She would steal forth; her custom, her delight,
To wander thro' and thro' an ancient grove
Self-planted half-way down, losing herself
Like one in love with sadness; and her veil
And vesture white, seen ever in that place,
Ever as surely as the hours came round,
Among those reverend trees, gave her below
The name of The White Lady. But the day
Is gone, and I delay thee.

In that chair
The Countess, as it might be now, was sitting,
Her gentle serving-maid, the fair Cristine,
Combing her golden hair; and thro' this door
The Count, her lord, was hastening, called away
By letters of great urgency to Venice;
When in the glass she saw, as she believed,
('Twas an illusion of the Evil One—
Some say he came and crossed it at the time)

220

A smile, a glance at parting, given and answered,
That turned her blood to gall. That very night
The deed was done. That night, ere yet the Moon
Was up on Monte Calvo, and the wolf
Baying as still he does (oft is he heard,
An hour and more, by the old turret-clock)
They led her forth, the unhappy lost Cristine,
Helping her down in her distress—to die.

“No blood was spilt; no instrument of death
Lurked—or stood forth, declaring its bad purpose;
Nor was a hair of her unblemished head
Hurt in that hour. Fresh as a flower just blown,
And warm with life, her youthful pulses playing,
She was walled up within the Castle-wall.
The wall itself was hollowed secretly;
Then closed again, and done to line and rule.
Would'st thou descend?—'Tis in a darksome vault
Under the Chapel: and there nightly now,
As in the narrow niche, when smooth and fair,
And as if nothing had been done or thought,
The stone-work rose before her, till the light
Glimmered and went—there, nightly at that hour,
(Thou smil'st, and would it were an idle tale!)
In her white veil and vesture white she stands
Shuddering—her eyes uplifted, and her hands
Joined as in prayer; then, like a Blessed Soul
Bursting the tomb, springs forward, and away
Flies o'er the woods and mountains. Issuing forth,
The hunter meets her in his hunting-track;
The shepherd on the heath, starting, exclaims
(For still she bears the name she bore of old)
‘'Tis the White Lady!’”

221

VENICE.

There is a glorious City in the Sea.
The Sea is in the broad, the narrow streets,
Ebbing and flowing; and the salt sea-weed
Clings to the marble of her palaces.
No track of men, no footsteps to and fro,
Lead to her gates. The path lies o'er the Sea,
Invisible; and from the land we went,
As to a floating City—steering in,
And gliding up her streets as in a dream,
So smoothly, silently—by many a dome,
Mosque-like, and many a stately portico,
The statues ranged along an azure sky;
By many a pile in more than Eastern pride,
Of old the residence of merchant-kings;
The fronts of some, though Time had shattered them,
Still glowing with the richest hues of art,
As though the wealth within them had run o'er.

Thither I came, and in a wondrous Ark,
(That, long before we slipt our cable, rang
As with the voices of all living things)
From Padua, where the stars are, night by night,
Watched from the top of an old dungeon-tower,
Whence blood ran once, the tower of Ezzelin—
Not as he watched them, when he read his fate

222

And shuddered. But of him I thought not then,
Him or his horoscope; far, far from me
The forms of Guilt and Fear; tho' some were there,
Sitting among us round the cabin-board,
Some who, like him, had cried, “Spill blood enough!”
And could shake long at shadows. They had played
Their parts at Padua, and were floating home,
Careless and full of mirth; to-morrow a day
Not in their Calendar.—Who in a strain
To make the hearer fold his arms and sigh,
Sings, “Caro, Caro!”—'Tis the Prima Donna,
And to her monkey, smiling in his face,
Who, as transported, cries, “Brava! Ancora!”
'Tis a grave personage, an old macaw,
Perched on her shoulder.—But who leaps ashore,
And with a shout urges the lagging mules;
Then climbs a tree that overhangs the stream,
And like an acorn, drops on deck again?
'Tis he who speaks not, stirs not, but we laugh;
That child of fun and frolic, Arlecchino.
And mark their Poet—with what emphasis
He prompts the young Soubrette, conning her part!
Her tongue plays truant, and he raps his box,
And prompts again; for ever looking round
As if in search of subjects for his wit,

223

His satire; and as often whispering
Things, though unheard, not unimaginable.

Had I thy pencil, Crabbe (when thou hast done,
Late may it be ... it will, like Prospero's staff,
Be buried fifty fathoms in the earth)
I would portray the Italian—Now I cannot.
Subtle, discerning, eloquent, the slave
Of Love, of Hate, for ever in extremes;
Gentle when unprovoked, easily won,
But quick in quarrel—through a thousand shades
His spirit flits, cameleon-like, and mocks
The eye of the observer.

Gliding on,
At length we leave the river for the sea.
At length a voice aloft proclaims “Venezia!”
And, as called forth, She comes.

A few in fear,
Flying away from him whose boast it was,
That the grass grew not where his horse had trod,
Gave birth to Venice. Like the water-fowl,
They built their nests among the ocean-waves;
And where the sands were shifting, as the wind
Blew from the north or south—where they that came,
Had to make sure the ground they stood upon,
Rose, like an exhalation from the deep,
A vast Metropolis, with glistering spires,
With theatres, basilicas adorned;
A scene of light and glory, a dominion,
That has endured the longest among men.

224

And whence the talisman, whereby she rose,
Towering? 'Twas found there in the barren sea.
Want led to Enterprise; and, far or near,
Who met not the Venetian?—now among
The Ægean Isles, steering from port to port,
Landing and bartering; now, no stranger there,
In Cairo, or without the eastern gate,
Ere yet the Cafila came, listening to hear
Its bells approaching from the Red-Sea coast;
Then on the Euxine, and that smaller Sea
Of Azoph, in close converse with the Russ,
And Tartar; on his lowly deck receiving
Pearls from the Persian Gulf, gems from Golconde;
Eyes brighter yet, that shed the light of love,
From Georgia, from Circassia. Wandering round,
When in the rich bazaar he saw, displayed,
Treasures from climes unknown, he asked and learnt,
And, travelling slowly upward, drew ere long
From the well-head, supplying all below;
Making the Imperial City of the East,
Herself, his tributary.—If we turn
To those black forests, where, through many an age,
Night without day, no axe the silence broke,
Or seldom, save where Rhine or Danube rolled;
Where o'er the narrow glen a castle hangs,
And, like the wolf that hungered at his door,
The baron lived by rapine—there we meet,

225

In warlike guise, the Caravan from Venice;
When on its march, now lost and now beheld,
A glittering file (the trumpet heard, the scout
Sent and recalled) but at a city-gate
All gaiety, and looked for ere it comes;
Winning regard with all that can attract,
Cages, whence every wild cry of the desert,
Jugglers, stage-dancers. Well might Charlemain,
And his brave peers, each with his visor up,
On their long lances lean and gaze awhile,
When the Venetian to their eyes disclosed
The wonders of the East! Well might they then
Sigh for new Conquests!

Thus did Venice rise,
Thus flourish, till the unwelcome tidings came,
That in the Tagus had arrived a fleet
From India, from the region of the Sun,
Fragrant with spices—that a way was found,
A channel opened, and the golden stream
Turned to enrich another. Then she felt
Her strength departing, yet awhile maintained
Her state, her splendour; till a tempest shook
All things most held in honour among men,
All that the giant with the scythe had spared,
To their foundations, and at once she fell;
She who had stood yet longer than the last
Of the Four Kingdoms—who, as in an Ark,
Had floated down, amid a thousand wrecks,
Uninjured, from the Old World to the New,
From the last glimpse of civilized life—to where
Light shone again, and with the blaze of noon.

Through many an age in the mid-sea she dwelt,
From her retreat calmly contemplating
The changes of the Earth, herself unchanged.
Before her passed, as in an awful dream,
The mightiest of the mighty. What are these,
Clothed in their purple? O'er the globe they fling

226

Their monstrous shadows; and, while yet we speak,
Phantom-like, vanish with a dreadful scream!
What—but the last that styled themselves the Cæsars?
And who in long array (look where they come;
Their gestures menacing so far and wide)
Wear the green turban and the heron's plume?
Who—but the Caliphs? followed fast by shapes
As new and strange—Emperor, and King, and Czar,
And Soldan, each, with a gigantic stride,
Trampling on all the flourishing works of peace
To make his greatness greater, and inscribe
His name in blood—some, men of steel, steel-clad;
Others, nor long, alas, the interval,
In light and gay attire, with brow serene
Wielding Jove's thunder, scattering sulphurous fire
Mingled with darkness; and, among the rest,
Lo, one by one, passing continually,
Those who assume a sway beyond them all;
Men grey with age, each in a triple crown,
And in his tremulous hands grasping the keys
That can alone, as he would signify,
Unlock Heaven's gate.

LUIGI.

Happy is he who loves companionship,
And lights on thee, Luigi. Thee I found,
Playing at Mora on the cabin-roof
With Punchinello.—'Tis a game to strike
Fire from the coldest heart. What then from thine?
And, ere the twentieth throw, I had resolved,
Won by thy looks. Thou wert an honest lad;

227

Wert generous, grateful, not without ambition.
Had it depended on thy will alone,
Thou wouldst have numbered in thy family
At least six Doges and the first in fame.
But that was not to be. In thee I saw
The last, if not the least, of a long line,
Who in their forest, for three hundred years,
Had lived and laboured, cutting, charring wood;
Discovering where they were, to those astray,
By the re-echoing stroke, the crash, the fall,
Or the blue wreath that travelled slowly up
Into the sky. Thy nobler destinies
Led thee away to justle in the crowd;
And there I found thee—trying once again,
What for thyself thou hadst prescribed so oft,
A change of air and diet—once again
Crossing the sea, and springing to the shore
As though thou knewest where to dine and sleep.

First in Bologna didst thou plant thyself,
Serving behind a Cardinal's gouty chair,
Listening and oft replying, jest for jest;
Then in Ferrara, everything by turns,
So great thy genius and so Proteus-like!
Now serenading in a lover's train,
And measuring swords with his antagonist;
Now carving, cup-bearing in halls of state;
And now a guide to the lorn traveller,
A very Cicerone—yet, alas,
How unlike him who fulmined in old Rome!
Dealing out largely in exchange for pence
Thy scraps of Knowledge—thro' the grassy street
Leading, explaining—pointing to the bars
Of Tasso's dungeon, and the Latin verse,
Graven in the stone, that yet denotes the door
Of Ariosto.

Many a year is gone
Since on the Rhine we parted; yet, methinks,

228

I can recall thee to the life, Luigi,
In our long journey ever by my side;
Thy locks jet-black, and clustering round a face
Open as day and full of manly daring.
Thou hadst a hand, a heart for all that came,
Herdsman or pedlar, monk or muleteer;
And few there were, that met thee not with smiles.
Mishap passed o'er thee like a summer-cloud.
Cares thou hadst none; and they, that stood to hear thee,
Caught the infection and forgot their own.
Nature conceived thee in her merriest mood,
Her happiest—not a speck was in the sky;
And at thy birth the cricket chirped, Luigi,
Thine a perpetual voice—at every turn
A larum to the echo. In a clime,
Where all were gay, none were so gay as thou;
Thou, like a babe, hushed only by thy slumbers;
Up hill and down hill, morning, noon and night,
Singing or talking; singing to thyself
When none gave ear, but to the listener talking.

ST. MARK'S PLACE.

Over how many tracts, vast, measureless,
Ages on ages roll, and none appear
Save the wild hunter ranging for his prey;
While on this spot of earth, the work of man,
How much has been transacted! Emperors, Popes,
Warriors, from far and wide, laden with spoil,
Landing, have here performed their several parts,
Then left the stage to others. Not a stone

229

In the broad pavement, but to him who has
An eye, an ear for the Inanimate World,
Tells of Past Ages.

In that temple-porch
(The brass is gone, the porphyry remains,)
Did Barbarossa fling his mantle off,
And, kneeling, on his neck receive the foot
Of the proud Pontiff—thus at last consoled
For flight, disguise, and many an anguish shake
On his stone pillow.

In that temple-porch,
Old as he was, so near his hundredth year,
And blind—his eyes put out—did Dandolo
Stand forth, displaying on his crown the cross.
There did he stand, erect, invincible,
Though wan his cheeks, and wet with many tears,
For in his prayers he had been weeping much;
And now the pilgrims and the people wept
With admiration, saying in their hearts,
“Surely those aged limbs have need of rest!”
There did he stand, with his old armour on,
Ere, gonfalon in hand, that streamed aloft,
As conscious of its glorious destiny,
So soon to float o'er mosque and minaret,
He sailed away, five hundred gallant ships,
Their lofty sides hung with emblazoned shields,
Following his track to fame. He went to die;
But of his trophies four arrived ere long,
Snatched from destruction—the four steeds divine,

230

That strike the ground, resounding with their feet,
And from their nostrils snort ethereal flame
Over that very porch; and in the place
Where in an after-time, beside the Doge,
Sate one yet greater, one whose verse shall live,
When the wave rolls o'er Venice. High he sate,
High over all, close by the ducal chair,
At the right hand of his illustrious Host,
Amid the noblest daughters of the realm,
Their beauty shaded from the western ray
By many-coloured hangings; while, beneath,
Knights of all nations, some of fair renown
From England, from victorious Edward's court,
Their lances in the rest, charged for the prize.

Here, among other pageants, and how oft
It met the eye, borne through the gazing crowd,
As if returning to console the least,
Instruct the greatest, did the Doge go round;
Now in a chair of state, now on his bier.
They were his first appearance, and his last.

The sea, that emblem of uncertainty,
Changed not so fast for many and many an age,
As this small spot. To-day 'twas full of masks;
And lo, the madness of the Carnival,

231

The monk, the nun, the holy legate masked!
To-morrow came the scaffold and the wheel;
And he died there by torch-light, bound and gagged,
Whose name and crime they knew not. Underneath
Where the Archangel, as alighted there,
Blesses the City from the topmost-tower,
His arms extended—there, in monstrous league,
Two phantom-shapes were sitting, side by side,
Or up, and, as in sport, chasing each other;
Horror and Mirth. Both vanished in one hour!
But Ocean only, when again he claims
His ancient rule, shall wash away their footsteps.

Enter the Palace by the marble stairs
Down which the grizzly head of old Falièr
Rolled from the block. Pass onward thro' the hall,
Where, among those drawn in their ducal robes,
But one is wanting—where, thrown off in heat,
A brief inscription on the Doge's chair
Led to another on the wall as brief;
And thou wilt track them—wilt from rooms of state,
Where kings have feasted, and the festal song
Rung through the fretted roof, cedar and gold,
Step into darkness; and be told, “'Twas here,
Trusting, deceived, assembled but to die,
To take a long embrace and part again,
Carrara and his valiant sons were slain;
He first—then they, whose only crime had been

232

Struggling to save their Father.”—Thro' that door,
So soon to cry, smiting his brow, “I am lost!”
Was with all courtesy, all honour, shewn
The great and noble captain, Carmagnola.—
That deep descent (thou canst not yet discern
Aught as it is) leads to the dripping vaults
Under the flood, where light and warmth were never!
Leads to a covered Bridge, the Bridge of Sighs;
And to that fatal closet at the foot,
Lurking for prey.—

But let us to the roof,
And, when thou hast surveyed the sea, the land,
Visit the narrow cells that cluster there,
As in a place of tombs. There burning suns,
Day after day, beat unrelentingly;
Turning all things to dust, and scorching up
The brain, till Reason fled, and the wild yell
And wilder laugh burst out on every side,
Answering each other as in mockery!

Few Houses of the size were better filled;
Though many came and left it in an hour.
“Most nights,” so said the good old Nicolo,
(For three-and-thirty years his uncle kept
The water-gate below, but seldom spoke,
Though much was on his mind,) “most nights arrived
The prison-boat, that boat with many oars,
And bore away as to the Lower World,
Disburdening in the Cànal Orfano,
That drowning-place, where never net was thrown,
Summer or Winter, death the penalty;
And where a secret, once deposited,
Lay till the waters should give up their dead.”

233

Yet what so gay as Venice? Every gale
Breathed music! and who flocked not, while she reigned,
To celebrate her Nuptials with the Sea;
To wear the mask, and mingle in the crowd
With Greek, Armenian, Persian—night and day
(There, and there only, did the hour stand still)
Pursuing thro' her thousand labyrinths
The Enchantress Pleasure; realizing dreams
The earliest, happiest—for a tale to catch
Credulous ears, and hold young hearts in chains,
Had only to begin, “There lived in Venice”—

“Who were the Six we supped with Yesternight?”
“Kings, one and all! Though couldst not but remark
The style and manner of the Six that served them.”

“Who answered me just now? Who, when I said,
‘'Tis nine,’ turned round and said so solemnly,
‘Signor, he died at nine!’”—“'Twas the Armenian;
The mask that follows thee, go where thou wilt.”

“But who moves there, alone among them all?”
“The Cypriot. Ministers from distant Courts
Beset his doors, long ere his rising-hour;
His the Great Secret! Not the golden house
Of Nero, nor those fabled in the East,
Rich though they were, so wondrous rich as his!
Two dogs, coal-black, in collars of pure gold,
Walk in his footsteps—Who but his familiars?
They walk, and cast no shadow in the sun!

234

And mark Him speaking. They, that listen, stand
As if his tongue dropped honey; yet his glance
None can endure! He looks nor young nor old;
And at a tourney, where I sat and saw,
A very child (full threescore years are gone)
Borne on my father's shoulder thro' the crowd,
He looked not otherwise. Where'er he stops,
Tho' short the sojourn, on his chamber-wall,
Mid many a treasure gleaned from many a clime,
His portrait hangs—but none must notice it;
For Titian glows in every lineament,
(Where is it not inscribed, The work is his!)
And Titian died two hundred years ago.”
—Such their discourse. Assembling in St. Mark's,
All nations met as on enchanted ground!

What tho' a strange my sterious Power was there,
Moving throughout, subtle, invisible,
And universal as the air they breathed;
A Power that never slumbered, nor forgave.
All eye, all ear, no where and every where,
Entering the closet and the sanctuary,
No place of refuge for the Doge himself;
Most present when least thought of—nothing dropt
In secret, when the heart was on the lips,
Nothing in feverish sleep, but instantly
Observed and judged — a Power, that if but named
In casual converse, be it where it might,
The speaker lowered at once his eyes, his voice,
And pointed upward as to God in Heaven—
What tho' that Power was there, he who lived thus,
Pursuing Pleasure, lived as if it were not.
But let him in the midnight-air indulge
A word, a thought against the laws of Venice,
And in that hour he vanished from the earth!

235

THE GONDOLA.

Boy, call the Gondola; the sun is set.—
It came, and we embarked; but instantly,
As at the waving of a magic wand,
Though she had stept on board so light of foot,
So light of heart, laughing she knew not why,
Sleep overcame her; on my arm she slept.
From time to time I waked her; but the boat
Rocked her to sleep again. The moon was now
Rising full-orbed, but broken by a cloud.
The wind was hushed, and the sea mirror-like.
A single zephyr, as enamoured, played
With her loose tresses, and drew more and more
Her veil across her bosom. Long I lay
Contemplating that face so beautiful,
That rosy mouth, that cheek dimpled with smiles,
That neck but half-concealed, whiter than snow.
'Twas the sweet slumber of her early age.
I looked and looked, and felt a flush of joy
I would express but cannot. Oft I wished
Gently—by stealth—to drop asleep myself,
And to incline yet lower that sleep might come;
Oft closed my eyes as in forgetfulness.
'Twas all in vain. Love would not let me rest.

But how delightful when at length she waked!
When, her light hair adjusting, and her veil
So rudely scattered, she resumed her place
Beside me; and, as gaily as before,
Sitting unconsciously nearer and nearer,
Poured out her innocent mind!

236

So, nor long since,
Sung a Venetian; and his lay of love,
Dangerous and sweet, charmed Venice. For myself.
(Less fortunate, if Love be Happiness)
No curtain drawn, no pulse beating alarm,
I went alone beneath the silent moon;
Thy Square, St. Mark, thy churches, palaces,
Glittering and frost-like, and, as day drew on,
Melting away, an emblem of themselves.

Those Porches passed, thro' which the water-breeze
Plays, though no longer on the noble forms
That moved there, sable-vested—and the Quay,
Silent, grass-grown—adventurer-like I launched
Into the deep, ere long discovering
Isles such as cluster in the Southern seas,
All verdure. Every where, from bush and brake,
The musky odour of the serpents came;
Their slimy tract across the woodman's path
Bright in the moonshine; and, as round I went,
Dreaming of Greece, whither the waves were gliding,
I listened to the venerable pines
Then in close converse, and, if right I guessed,
Delivering many a message to the Winds,
In secret, for their kindred on Mount Ida.

Nor when again in Venice, when again
In that strange place, so stirring and so still,
Where nothing comes to drown the human voice
But music, or the dashing of the tide,
Ceased I to wander. Now a Jessica
Sung to her lute, her signal as she sate

237

At her half-open window. Then, methought,
A serenade broke silence, breathing hope
Thro' walls of stone, and torturing the proud heart
Of some Priuli. Once, we could not err,
(It was before an old Palladian house,
As between night and day we floated by)
A Gondolier lay singing; and he sung,
As in the time when Venice was Herself,
Of Tancred and Erminia. On our oars
We rested; and the verse was verse divine!
We could not err—Perhaps he was the last—
For none took up the strain, none answered him;
And, when he ceased, he left upon my ear
A something like the dying voice of Venice!

The moon went down; and nothing now was seen
Save where the lamp of a Madonna shone
Faintly—or heard, but when he spoke, who stood
Over the lantern at the prow and cried,
Turning the corner of some reverend pile,
Some school or hospital of old renown,
Tho' haply none were coming, none were near,
“Hasten or slacken.” But at length Night fled;
And with her fled, scattering, the sons of Pleasure.
Star after star shot by, or, meteor-like,
Crossed me and vanished—lost at once among
Those hundred Isles that tower majestically,
That rise abruptly from the water-mark,
Not with rough crag, but marble, and the work
Of noblest architects. I lingered still;

238

Nor sought my threshold, till the hour was come
And past, when, flitting home in the grey light,
The young Bianca found her father's door,
That door so often with a trembling hand,
So often—then so lately left ajar,
Shut; and, all terror, all perplexity,
Now by her lover urged, now by her love,
Fled o'er the waters to return no more.

THE BRIDES OF VENICE.

It was St. Mary's Eve, and all poured forth
For some great festival. The fisher came
From his green islet, bringing o'er the waves
His wife and little one; the husbandman
From the Firm Land, with many a friar and nun,
And village-maiden, her first flight from home,
Crowding the common ferry. All arrived;
And in his straw the prisoner turned to hear,
So great the stir in Venice. Old and young
Thronged her three hundred bridges; the grave Turk,
Turbaned, long-vested, and the cozening Jew
In yellow hat and thread-bare gaberdine,

239

Hurrying along. For, as the custom was,
The noblest sons and daughters of the State,
Whose names are written in the Book of Gold,
Were on that day to solemnize their nuptials.

At noon a distant murmur through the crowd
Rising and rolling on, proclaimed them near;
And never from their earliest hour was seen
Such splendour or such beauty. Two and two,
(The richest tapestry unrolled before them)
First came the Brides; each in her virgin-veil,
Nor unattended by her bridal maids,
The two that, step by step, behind her bore
The small but precious caskets that contained
The dowry and the presents. On she moved
In the sweet seriousness of virgin-youth;
Her eyes cast down, and holding in her hand
A fan, that gently waved, of ostrich-plumes.
Her veil, transparent as the gossamer,
Fell from beneath a starry diadem;
And on her dazzling neck a jewel shone,
Ruby or diamond or dark amethyst;
A jewelled chain, in many a winding wreath,
Wreathing her gold brocade.

Before the Church,
That venerable structure now no more
On the sea-brink, another train they met,
No strangers, nor unlooked for ere they came,
Brothers to some, still dearer to the rest;
Each in his hand bearing his cap and plume,
And, as he walked, with modest dignity

240

Folding his scarlet mantle. At the gate
They join; and slowly up the bannered aisle
Led by the choir, with due solemnity
Range round the altar. In his vestments there
The Patriarch stands; and, while the anthem flows,
Who can look on unmoved—the dream of years
Just now fulfilling! Here a mother weeps,
Rejoicing in her daughter. There a son
Blesses the day that is to make her his;
While she shines forth through all her ornament,
Her beauty heightened by her hopes and fears.

At length the rite is ending. All fall down,
All of all ranks; and, stretching out his hands,
Apostle-like, the holy man proceeds
To give the blessing—not a stir, a breath;
When hark, a din of voices from without,
And shrieks and groans and outcries as in battle!
And lo, the door is burst, the curtain rent,
And armed ruffians, robbers from the deep,
Savage, uncouth, led on by Barberigo
And his six brothers in their coats of steel,
Are standing on the threshold! Statue-like
Awhile they gaze on the fallen multitude,
Each with his sabre up, in act to strike;
Then, as at once recovering from the spell,
Rush forward to the altar, and as soon
Are gone again—amid no clash of arms
Bearing away the maidens and the treasures.

Where are they now?—ploughing the distant waves,
Their sails outspread and given to the wind,
They on their decks triumphant. On they speed,
Steering for Istria; their accursed barks
(Well are they known, the galliot and the galley)
Freighted, alas, with all that life endears!

241

The richest argosies were poor to them!

Now hadst thou seen along that crowded shore
The matrons running wild, their festal dress
A strange and moving contrast to their grief;
And through the city, wander where thou wouldst,
The men half armed and arming—everywhere
As roused from slumber by the stirring trump;
One with a shield, one with a casque and spear;
One with an axe severing in two the chain
Of some old pinnace. Not a raft, a plank,
But on that day was drifting. In an hour
Half Venice was afloat. But long before,
Frantic with grief and scorning all control,
The Youths were gone in a light brigantine,
Lying at anchor near the Arsenal;
Each having sworn, and by the holy rood,
To slay or to be slain.

And from the tower
The watchman gives the signal. In the East
A ship is seen, and making for the Port;
Her flag St. Mark's. And now she turns the point,
Over the waters like a sea-bird flying!
Ha, 'tis the same, 'tis theirs! from stern to prow
Green with victorious wreaths, she comes to bring
All that was lost.

Coasting, with narrow search,
Friuli—in his spring, like a tiger
They had surprised the Corsairs where they lay
Sharing the spoil in blind security
And casting lots—had slain them, one and all,
All to the last, and flung them far and wide
Into the sea, their proper element;
Him first, as first in rank, whose name so long
Had hushed the babes of Venice, and who yet,
Breathing a little, in his look retained

242

The fierceness of his soul.

Thus were the Brides
Lost and recovered; and what now remained
But to give Thanks? Twelve breast-plates and twelve crowns,
By the young Victors to their Patron-Saint
Vowed in the field, inestimable gifts
Flaming with gems and gold, were in due time
Laid at his feet; and ever to preserve
The memory of a day so full of change,
From joy to grief, from grief to joy again,
Through many an age, as oft as it came round,
'Twas held religiously. The Doge resigned
His crimson for pure ermine, visiting
At earliest dawn St. Mary's silver shrine;
And through the city, in a stately barge
Of gold, were borne with songs and symphonies
Twelve ladies young and noble. Clad they were
In bridal white with bridal ornaments,
Each in her glittering veil; and on the deck,
As on a burnished throne, they glided by;
No window or balcóny but adorned
With hangings of rich texture, not a roof
But covered with beholders, and the air
Vocal with joy. Onward they went, their oars
Moving in concert with the harmony,
Through the Rialto to the Ducal Palace,

243

And at a banquet, served with honour there,
Sat representing, in the eyes of all,
Eyes not unwet, I ween, with grateful tears,
Their lovely ancestors, the Brides of Venice.

FOSCARI.

Let us lift up the curtain, and observe
What passes in that chamber. Now a sigh,
And now a groan is heard. Then all is still.
Twenty are sitting as in judgment there;
Men who have served their country and grown grey
In governments and distant embassies,
Men eminent alike in war and peace;
Such as in effigy shall long adorn
The walls of Venice—to shew what she was!
Their garb is black, and black the arras is,
And sad the general aspect. Yet their looks
Are calm, are cheerful; nothing there like grief,
Nothing or harsh or cruel. Still that noise,
That low and dismal moaning.

Half withdrawn,
A little to the left, sits one in crimson,

244

A venerable man, fourscore and five.
Cold drops of sweat stand on his furrowed brow.
His hands are clenched; his eyes half-shut and glazed;
His shrunk and withered limbs rigid as marble.
'Tis Foscari, the Doge. And there is one,
A young man, lying at his feet, stretched out
In torture. 'Tis his son. 'Tis Giacomo,
His only joy (and has he lived for this?)
Accused of murder. Yesternight the proofs,
If proofs they be, were in the lion's mouth
Dropt by some hand unseen; and he, himself,
Must sit and look on a beloved son
Suffering the Question.

Twice to die in peace,
To save, while yet he could, a falling house,
And turn the hearts of his fell Adversaries,
Those who had now, like hell-hounds in full cry,
Chased down his last of four, twice did he ask
To lay aside the Crown, and they refused,
An oath exacting, never more to ask;
And there he sits, a spectacle of woe,
Condemned in bitter mockery to wear
The bauble he had sighed for.

Once again
The screw is turned; and, as it turns, the Son
Looks up, and, in a faint and broken tone,
Murmurs “My Father!” The old man shrinks back,
And in his mantle muffles up his face.
“Art thou not guilty?” says a voice, that once
Would greet the Sufferer long before they met,
“Art thou not guilty?”—“No! Indeed I am not!”
But all is unavailing. In that Court
Groans are confessions; Patience, Fortitude,
The work of Magic; and, released, revived,
For Condemnation, from his Father's lips
He hears the sentence, “Banishment to Candia.

245

Death, if he leaves it.” And the bark sets sail;
And he is gone from all he loves in life!
Gone in the dead of night—unseen of any—
Without a word, a look of tenderness,
To be called up, when, in his lonely hours,
He would indulge in weeping. Like a ghost,
Day after day, year after year, he haunts
An ancient rampart that o'erhangs the sea;
Gazing on vacancy, and hourly there
Starting as from some wild and uncouth dream,
To answer to the watch.—Alas, how changed
From him the mirror of the Youth of Venice;
Whom in the slightest thing, or whim or chance,
Did he but wear his doublet so and so,
All followed; at whose nuptials, when he won
That maid at once the noblest, fairest, best,
A daughter of the House that now among
Its ancestors in monumental brass
Numbers eight Doges—to convey her home,
The Bùcentaur went forth; and thrice the Sun
Shone on the Chivalry, that, front to front,
And blaze on blaze reflecting, met and ranged
To tourney in St. Mark's.—But lo, at last,
Messengers come. He is recalled: his heart
Leaps at the tidings. He embarks: the boat
Springs to the oar, and back again he goes—
Into that very Chamber! there to lie
In his old resting-place, the bed of steel;
And thence look up (Five long, long years of Grief
Have not killed either) on his wretched Sire,
Still in that seat—as though he had not stirred;

246

Immovable, and muffled in his cloak.

But now he comes, convicted of a crime
Great by the laws of Venice. Night and day,
Brooding on what he had been, what he was,
'Twas more than he could bear. His longing-fits
Thickened upon him. His desire for home
Became a madness; and, resolved to go,
If but to die, in his despair he writes
A letter to the sovereign-prince of Milan,
(To him whose name, among the greatest now,
Had perished, blotted out at once and rased,
But for the rugged limb of an old oak)
Soliciting his influence with the State,
And drops it to be found.—“Would ye know all?
I have transgressed, offended wilfully;
And am prepared to suffer as I ought.
But let me, let me, if but for an hour,
(Ye must consent—for all of you are sons,
Most of you husbands, fathers) let me first
Indulge the natural feelings of a man,
And, ere I die, if such my sentence be,
Press to my heart ('tis all I ask of you)
My wife, my children—and my aged mother—
Say, is she yet alive?”

He is condemned
To go ere set of sun, go whence he came,
A banished man; and for a year to breathe
The vapour of a dungeon. But his prayer
(What could they less?) is granted.

In a hall

247

Open and crowded by the common herd,
'Twas there a Wife and her four sons yet young,
A Mother borne along, life ebbing fast,
And an old Doge, mustering his strength in vain,
Assembled now, sad privilege, to meet
One so long lost, one who for them had braved,
For them had sought—death and yet worse than death!
To meet him, and to part with him for ever!—
Time and their wrongs had changed them all, him most!
Yet when the Wife, the Mother looked again,
'Twas he—'twas he himself—'twas Giacomo!
And all clung round him, weeping bitterly;
Weeping the more, because they wept in vain.

Unnerved, and now unsettled in his mind
From long and exquisite pain, he sobs and cries,
Kissing the old Man's cheek, “Help me, my Father!
Let me, I pray thee, live once more among ye:
Let me go home.”—“My Son,” returns the Doge,
“Obey. Thy Country wills it.”

Giacomo
That night embarked; sent to an early grave
For one whose dying words, “The deed was mine!
He is most innocent! 'Twas I who did it!”
Came when he slept in peace. The ship, that sailed
Swift as the winds with his deliverance,
Bore back a lifeless corse. Generous as brave,
Affection, kindness, the sweet offices
Of duty and love were from his tenderest years
To him as needful as his daily bread;
And to become a by-word in the streets,
Bringing a stain on those who gave him life,
And those, alas, now worse than fatherless—
To be proclaimed a ruffian, a night-stabber,

248

He on whom none before had breathed reproach—
He lived but to disprove it. That hope lost,
Death followed. Oh, if Justice be in Heaven,
A day must come of ample Retribution!

Then was thy cup, old Man, full to the brim.
But thou wert yet alive; and there was one,
The soul and spring of all that Enmity,
Who would not leave thee; fastening on thy flank,
Hungering and thirsting, still unsatisfied;
One of a name illustrious as thine own!
One of the Ten! one of the Invisible Three!
'Twas Loredano. When the whelps were gone,
He would dislodge the Lion from his den;
And, leading on the pack he long had led,
The miserable pack that ever howled
Against fallen Greatness, moved that Foscari
Be Doge no longer; urging his great age;
Calling the loneliness of Grief neglect
Of duty, sullenness against the laws.
—“I am most willing to retire,” said he:
“But I have sworn, and cannot of myself.
Do with me as ye please.”—He was deposed,
He, who had reigned so long and gloriously;
His ducal bonnet taken from his brow,
His robes stript off, his seal and signet-ring
Broken before him. But now nothing moved
The meekness of his soul. All things alike!
Among the six that came with the decree,
Foscari saw one he knew not, and inquired
His name. “I am the son of Marco Memmo.”
“Ah,” he replied, “thy father was my friend.”

And now he goes. “It is the hour and past.
I have no business here.”—“But wilt thou not
Avoid the gazing crowd? That way is private.”

249

“No! as I entered, so will I retire.”
And, leaning on his staff, he left the House,
His residence for five-and-thirty years,
By the same stairs up which he came in state;
Those where the giants stand, guarding the ascent,
Monstrous, terrific. At the foot he stopt,
And, on his staff still leaning, turned and said,
“By mine own merits did I come. I go,
Driven by the malice of mine Enemies.”
Then to his boat withdrew, poor as he came,
Amid the sighs of them that dared not speak.

This journey was his last. When the bell rang
At dawn, announcing a new Doge to Venice,
It found him on his knees before the Cross,
Clasping his aged hands in earnest prayer;
And there he died. Ere half its task was done,
It rang his knell.

But whence the deadly hate
That caused all this—the hate of Loredano?
It was a legacy his Father left,
Who, but for Foscari, had reigned in Venice,
And, like the venom in the serpent's bag,
Gathered and grew! Nothing but turned to hate!
In vain did Foscari supplicate for peace,
Offering in marriage his fair Isabel.
He changed not, with a dreadful piety
Studying revenge; listening to those alone
Who talked of vengeance; grasping by the hand
Those in their zeal (and none were wanting there)
Who came to tell him of another Wrong,
Done or imagined. When his father died,
They whispered, “'Twas by poison!” and the words
Struck him as uttered from his father's grave.
He wrote it on the tomb ('tis there in marble)

250

And with a brow of care, most merchant-like,
Among the debtors in his leger-book
Entered at full (nor month, nor day forgot)
“Francesco Foscari—for my Father's death.”
Leaving a blank—to be filled up hereafter.
When Foscari's noble heart at length gave way,
He took the volume from the shelf again
Calmly, and with his pen filled up the blank,
Inscribing, “He has paid me.”

Ye who sit
Brooding from day to day, from day to day
Chewing the bitter cud, and starting up
As tho' the hour was come to whet your fangs,
And, like the Pisan, gnaw the hairy scalp
Of him who had offended—if ye must,
Sit and brood on; but oh forbear to teach
The lesson to your children.

252

ARQUÀ.

Three leagues from Padua stands and long has stood
(The Paduan student knows it, honours it)
A lonely tomb beside a mountain-church;
And I arrived there as the sun declined
Low in the west. The gentle airs, that breathe
Fragrance at eve, were rising, and the birds
Singing their farewell-song—the very song
They sung the night that tomb received a tenant;
When, as alive, clothed in his Canon's stole,
And slowly winding down the narrow path,
He came to rest there. Nobles of the land,

253

Princes and prelates mingled in his train,
Anxious by any act, while yet they could,
To catch a ray of glory by reflection;
And from that hour have kindred spirits flocked
From distant countries, from the north, the south,
To see where he is laid.

Twelve years ago,
When I descended the impetuous Rhone,
Its vineyards of such great and old renown,
Its castles, each with some romantic tale,
Vanishing fast—the pilot at the stern,
He who had steered so long, standing aloft,
His eyes on the white breakers, and his hands
On what was now his rudder, now his oar,
A huge misshapen plank—the bark itself
Frail and uncouth, launched to return no more,
Such as a shipwrecked man might hope to build,
Urged by the love of home—Twelve years ago,
When like an arrow from the cord we flew,
Two long, long days, silence, suspense on board,
It was to offer at thy fount, Vaucluse,
Entering the arched Cave, to wander where
Petrarch had wandered, to explore and sit
Where in his peasant-dress he loved to sit,
Musing, reciting—on some rock moss-grown,
Or the fantastic root of some old beech,
That drinks the living waters as they stream
Over their emerald-bed; and could I now

254

Neglect the place where, in a graver mood,
When he had done and settled with the world,
When all the illusions of his Youth were fled,
Indulged perhaps too much, cherished too long,
He came for the conclusion? Half-way up
He built his house, whence as by stealth he caught,
Among the hills, a glimpse of busy life
That soothed, not stirred.—But knock, and enter in.
This was his chamber. 'Tis as when he went;
As if he now were in his orchard-grove.
And this his closet. Here he sat and read.
This was his chair; and in it, unobserved,
Reading, or thinking of his absent friends,
He passed away as in a quiet slumber.

Peace to this region! Peace to each, to all!
They know his value—every coming step,
That draws the gazing children from their play,
Would tell them if they knew not.—But could aught,
Ungentle or ungenerous, spring up
Where he is sleeping; where, and in an age
Of savage warfare and blind bigotry,
He cultured all that could refine, exalt;
Leading to better things?

255

GINEVRA.

If thou shouldst ever come by choice or chance
To Modena, where still religiously
Among her ancient trophies is preserved
Bologna's bucket (in its chain it hangs
Within that reverend tower, the Guirlandine)
Stop at a Palace near the Reggio-gate,
Dwelt in of old by one of the Orsini.
Its noble gardens, terrace above terrace,
And rich in fountains, statues, cypresses,
Will long detain thee; thro' their arched walks,
Dim at noon-day, discovering many a glimpse
Of knights and dames, such as in old romance,
And lovers, such as in heroic song,
Perhaps the two, for groves were their delight,
That in the spring-time, as alone they sate,
Venturing together on a tale of love,
Read only part that day.—A summer-sun
Sets ere one half is seen; but, ere thou go,
Enter the house—prythee, forget it not—
And look awhile upon a picture there.

'Tis of a Lady in her earliest youth,
The very last of that illustrious race,
Done by Zampieri—but by whom I care not.
He, who observes it—ere he passes on,
Gazes his fill, and comes and comes again,

256

That he may call it up, when far away.

She sits, inclining forward as to speak,
Her lips half-open, and her finger up,
As though she said “Beware!” her vest of gold
Broidered with flowers, and clasped from head to foot,
An emerald-stone in every golden clasp;
And on her brow, fairer than alabaster,
A coronet of pearls. But then her face,
So lovely, yet so arch, so full of mirth,
The overflowings of an innocent heart—
It haunts me still, though many a year has fled,
Like some wild melody!

Alone it hangs
Over a mouldering heir-loom, its companion,
An oaken-chest, half-eaten by the worm,
But richly carved by Antony of Trent
With scripture-stories from the Life of Christ;
A chest that came from Venice, and had held
The ducal robes of some old Ancestor.
That by the way—it may be true or false—
But don't forget the picture; and thou wilt not,
When thou hast heard the tale they told me there.

She was an only child; from infancy
The joy, the pride of an indulgent Sire.
Her Mother dying of the gift she gave,
That precious gift, what else remained to him?
The young Ginevra was his all in life,
Still as she grew, for ever in his sight;
And in her fifteenth year became a bride,
Marrying an only son, Francesco Doria,
Her playmate from her birth, and her first love.

Just as she looks there in her bridal dress,
She was all gentleness, all gaiety,
Her pranks the favourite theme of every tongue.
But now the day was come, the day, the hour;
Now, frowning, smiling, for the hundredth time,
The nurse, that ancient lady, preached decorum;

257

And in the lustre of her youth, she gave
Her hand, with her heart in it, to Francesco.

Great was the joy; but at the Bridal feast,
When all sate down, the Bride was wanting there.
Nor was she to be found! Her Father cried,
“'Tis but to make a trial of our love!”
And filled his glass to all; but his hand shook,
And soon from guest to guest the panic spread.
'Twas but that instant she had left Francesco,
Laughing and looking back and flying still,
Her ivory-tooth imprinted on his finger.
But now, alas, she was not to be found;
Nor from that hour could anything be guessed,
But that she was not!—Weary of his life,
Francesco flew to Venice, and forthwith
Flung it away in battle with the Turk.
Orsini lived; and long was to be seen
An old man wandering as in quest of something,
Something he could not find—he knew not what.
When he was gone, the house remained awhile
Silent and tenantless—then went to strangers.

Full fifty years were past, and all forgot,
When on an idle day, a day of search
Mid the old lumber in the Gallery,
That mouldering chest was noticed; and 'twas said
By one as young, as thoughtless as Ginevra,
“Why not remove it from its lurking place?”
'Twas done as soon as said; but on the way
It burst, it fell; and lo, a skeleton,
With here and there a pearl, an emerald-stone,
A golden clasp, clasping a shred of gold.
All else had perished—save a nuptial ring,
And a small seal, her mother's legacy
Engraven with a name, the name of both,
“Ginevra.”—There then had she found a grave!

258

Within that chest had she concealed herself,
Fluttering with joy, the happiest of the happy;
When a spring-lock, that lay in ambush there,
Fastened her down for ever!

BOLOGNA.

'Twas night; the noise and bustle of the day
Were o'er. The mountebank no longer wrought
Miraculous cures—he and his stage were gone;
And he who, when the crisis of his tale
Came, and all stood breathless with hope and fear,
Sent round his cap; and he who thrummed his wire
And sang, with pleading look and plaintive strain
Melting the passenger. Thy thousand Cries,
So well pourtrayed, and by a son of thine,
Whose voice had swelled the hubbub in his youth,
Were hushed, Bologna, silence in the streets,
The squares, when hark, the clattering of fleet hoofs;
And soon a Courier, posting as from far,
Housing and holster, boot and belted coat
And doublet, stained with many a various soil,
Stopt and alighted. 'Twas where hangs aloft
That ancient sign, the pilgrim, welcoming
All who arrive there, all perhaps save those
Clad like himself, with staff and scallop-shell,
Those on a pilgrimage. And now approached
Wheels, through the lofty porticoes resounding,

259

Arch beyond arch, a shelter or a shade
As the sky changes. To the gate they came;
And, ere the man had half his story done,
Mine host received the Master—one long used
To sojourn among strangers, every where
(Go where he would, along the wildest track)
Flinging a charm that shall not soon be lost,
And leaving footsteps to be traced by those
Who love the haunts of Genius; one who saw,
Observed, nor shunned the busy scenes of life,
But mingled not, and mid the din, the stir,
Lived as a separate Spirit.

Much had passed
Since last we parted; and those five short years—
Much had they told! His clustering locks were turned
Grey; nor did ought recall the Youth that swam
From Sestos to Abydos. Yet his voice,
Still it was sweet; still from his eye the thought
Flashed lightning-like, nor lingered on the way,
Waiting for words. Far, far into the night
We sat, conversing—no unwelcome hour,
The hour we met; and, when Aurora rose,
Rising, we climbed the rugged Apennine.

Well I remember how the golden sun
Filled with its beams the unfathomable gulfs,
As on we travelled, and along the ridge,
Mid groves of cork and cistus and wild-fig,
His motley household came—Not last nor least,
Battista, who, upon the moonlight-sea
Of Venice, had so ably, zealously,
Served, and, at parting, thrown his oar away
To follow through the world; who without stain
Had worn so long that honourable badge,
The gondolier's, in a Patrician House

260

Arguing unlimited trust.—Not last nor least,
Thou, tho' declining in thy beauty and strength,
Faithful Moretto, to the latest hour
Guarding his chamber-door, and now along
The silent, sullen strand of Missolonghi
Howling in grief.—He had just left that Place
Of old renown, once in the Adrian sea,
Ravenna! where, from Dante's sacred tomb
He had so oft, as many a verse declares,
Drawn inspiration; where, at twilight-time,
Thro' the pine-forest wandering with loose rein,
Wandering and lost, he had so oft beheld
(What is not visible to a Poet's eye?)
The spectre-knight, the hell-hounds and their prey,
The chase, the slaughter, and the festal mirth
Suddenly blasted. 'Twas a theme he loved,
But others claimed their turn; and many a tower,
Shattered, uprooted from its native rock,
Its strength the pride of some heroic age,
Appeared and vanished (many a sturdy steer
Yoked and unyoked) while as in happier days
He poured his spirit forth. The Past forgot,
All was enjoyment. Not a cloud obscured
Present or future.

He is now at rest;
And praise and blame fall on his ear alike,
Now dull in death. Yes, Byron, thou art gone,
Gone like a star that through the firmament
Shot and was lost, in its eccentric course
Dazzling, perplexing. Yet thy heart, methinks,
Was generous, noble—noble in its scorn
Of all things low or little; nothing there

261

Sordid or servile. If imagined wrongs
Pursued thee, urging thee sometimes to do
Things long regretted, oft, as many know,
None more than I, thy gratitude would build
On slight foundations: and, if in thy life
Not happy, in thy death thou surely wert,
Thy wish accomplished; dying in the land
Where thy young mind had caught ethereal fire,
Dying in Greece, and in a cause so glorious!

They in thy train—ah, little did they think,
As round we went, that they so soon should sit
Mourning beside thee, while a Nation mourned,
Changing her festal for her funeral song;
That they so soon should hear the minute-gun,
As morning gleamed on what remained of thee,
Roll o'er the sea, the mountains, numbering
Thy years of joy and sorrow.

Thou art gone;
And he who would assail thee in thy grave,
Oh, let him pause! For who among us all,
Tried as thou wert—even from thine earliest years,
When wandering, yet unspoilt, a highland-boy—
Tried as thou wert, and with thy soul of flame;
Pleasure, while yet the down was on thy cheek,
Uplifting, pressing, and to lips like thine,
Her charmed cup—ah, who among us all
Could say he had not erred as much, and more?

262

FLORENCE.

Of all the fairest Cities of the Earth
None is so fair as Florence. 'Tis a gem
Of purest ray; and what a light broke forth,
When it emerged from darkness! Search within,
Without; all is enchantment! 'Tis the Past
Contending with the Present; and in turn
Each has the mastery.

In this chapel wrought
One of the Few, Nature's Interpreters,
The Few, whom Genius gives as Lights to shine,
Masaccio; and he slumbers underneath.
Wouldst thou behold his monument? Look round!
And know that where we stand, stood oft and long,
Oft till the day was gone, Raphael himself;
Nor he alone, so great the ardour there,
Such, while it reigned, the generous rivalry;
He and how many as at once called forth,
Anxious to learn of those who came before,

263

To steal a spark from their authentic fire,
Theirs who first broke the universal gloom,
Sons of the Morning.

On that ancient seat,
The seat of stone that runs along the wall,
South of the Church, east of the belfry-tower,
(Thou canst not miss it) in the sultry time
Would Dante sit conversing, and with those
Who little thought that in his hand he held
The balance, and assigned at his good pleasure
To each his place in the invisible world,
To some an upper region, some a lower;
Many a transgressor sent to his account,
Long ere in Florence numbered with the dead;
The body still as full of life and stir
At home, abroad; still and as oft inclined
To eat, drink, sleep; still clad as others were,
And at noon-day, where men were wont to meet,
Met as continually; when the soul went,
Relinquished to a demon, and by him
(So says the Bard, and who can read and doubt?)
Dwelt in and governed.

Sit thee down awhile;
Then, by the gates so marvellously wrought,
That they might serve to be the gates of Heaven,
Enter the Baptistery. That place he loved,
Loved as his own; and in his visits there

264

Well might he take delight! For when a child,
Playing, as many are wont, with venturous feet
Near and yet nearer to the sacred font,
Slipped and fell in, he flew and rescued him,
Flew with an energy, a violence,
That broke the marble—a mishap ascribed
To evil motives; his, alas, to lead
A life of trouble, and ere long to leave
All things most dear to him, ere long to know
How salt another's bread is, and the toil
Of going up and down another's stairs.

Nor then forget that Chamber of the Dead,
Where the gigantic shapes of Night and Day,
Turned into stone, rest everlastingly;
Yet still are breathing, and shed round at noon
A two-fold influence—only to be felt—
A light, a darkness, mingling each with each;
Both and yet neither. There, from age to age,
Two Ghosts are sitting on their sepulchres.
That is the Duke Lorenzo. Mark him well.
He meditates, his head upon his hand.
What from beneath his helm-like bonnet scowls?
Is it a face, or but an eyeless skull?
'Tis lost in shade; yet, like the basilisk,
It fascinates, and is intolerable.
His mien is noble, most majestical!
Then most so, when the distant choir is heard
At morn or eve—nor fail thou to attend
On that thrice-hallowed day, when all are there;
When all, propitiating with solemn songs,
Visit the Dead. Then wilt thou feel his Power!

265

But let not Sculpture, Painting, Poesy,
Or They, the Masters of these mighty Spells,
Detain us. Our first homage is to Virtue.
Where, in what dungeon of the Citadel,
(It must be known—the writing on the wall
Cannot be gone—'twas with the blade cut in,
Ere, on his knees to God, he slew himself,)
Did He, the last, the noblest Citizen,
Breathe out his soul, lest in the torturing hour
He might accuse the Guiltless?

That debt paid,
But with a sigh, a tear for human frailty,
We may return, and once more give a loose
To the delighted spirit—worshipping,
In her small temple of rich workmanship,
Venus herself, who, when she left the skies,
Came hither.

DON GARZÌA.

Among those awful forms, in elder time
Assembled, and through many an after-age
Destined to stand as Genii of the Place
Where men most meet in Florence, may be seen
His who first played the Tyrant. Clad in mail,
But with his helmet off—in kingly state,
Aloft he sits upon his horse of brass;
And they, that read the legend underneath,
Go and pronounce him happy. Yet, methinks,

266

There is a Chamber that, if walls could speak,
Would turn their admiration into pity.
Half of what passed, died with him; but the rest,
All he discovered when the fit was on,
All that, by those who listened, could be gleaned
From broken sentences and starts in sleep,
Is told, and by an honest Chronicler.

Two of his sons, Giovanni and Garzìa,
(The eldest had not seen his nineteenth summer)
Went to the chase; but only one returned.
Giovanni, when the huntsman blew his horn
O'er the last stag that started from the brake,
And in the heather turned to stand at bay,
Appeared not; and at close of day was found
Bathed in his innocent blood. Too well, alas,
The trembling Cosmo guessed the deed, the doer;
And, having caused the body to be borne
In secret to that Chamber—at an hour
When all slept sound, save she who bore them both,
Who little thought of what was yet to come,
And lived but to be told—he bade Garzìa
Arise and follow him. Holding in one hand
A winking lamp, and in the other a key
Massive and dungeon-like, thither he led;
And, having entered in and locked the door,
The father fixed his eyes upon the son,
And closely questioned him. No change betrayed
Or guilt or fear. Then Cosmo lifted up
The bloody sheet. “Look there! Look there!” he cried.
“Blood calls for blood—and from a father's hand!
—Unless thyself wilt save him that sad office.

267

What!” he exclaimed, when, shuddering at the sight,
The boy breathed out, “I stood but on my guard.”
“Dar'st thou then blacken one who never wronged thee,
Who would not set his foot upon a worm?
Yes, thou must die, lest others fall by thee,
And thou shouldst be the slayer of us all.
Then from Garzìa's belt he drew the blade,
That fatal one which spilt his brother's blood;
And, kneeling on the ground, “Great God!” he cried,
“Grant me the strength to do an act of Justice.
Thou knowest what it costs me; but, alas,
How can I spare myself, sparing none else?
Grant me the strength, the will—and oh forgive
The sinful soul of a most wretched son.
'Tis a most wretched father who implores it.”
Long on Garzìa's neck he hung and wept,
Long pressed him to his bosom tenderly;
And then, but while he held him by the arm,
Thrusting him backward, turned away his face,
And stabbed him to the heart.

Well might a Youth,
Studious of men, anxious to learn and know,
When in the train of some great embassy
He came, a visitant, to Cosmo's court,
Think on the past; and, as he wandered through
The ample spaces of an ancient house,
Silent, deserted—stop awhile to dwell
Upon two portraits there, drawn on the wall
Together, as of Two in bonds of love,
Those of the unhappy brothers, and conclude
From the sad looks of him who could have told,

268

The terrible truth.—Well might he heave a sigh
For poor humanity, when he beheld
That very Cosmo shaking o'er his fire,
Drowsy and deaf and inarticulate,
Wrapt in his night-gown, o'er a sick man's mess,
In the last stage—death-struck and deadly pale;
His wife, another, not his Eleanor,
At once his nurse and his interpreter.

THE CAMPAGNA OF FLORENCE.

'Tis morning. Let us wander through the fields,
Where Cimabuè found a shepherd-boy
Tracing his idle fancies on the ground;
And let us from the top of Fiesole,
Whence Galileo's glass by night observed
The phases of the moon, look round below
On Arno's vale, where the dove-coloured steer
Is ploughing up and down among the vines,
While many a careless note is sung aloud,
Filling the air with sweetness—and on thee,

269

Beautiful Florence, all within thy walls,
Thy groves and gardens, pinnacles and towers,
Drawn to our feet.

From that small spire, just caught
By the bright ray, that church among the rest
By One of Old distinguished as The Bride,
Let us in thought pursue (what can we better?)
Those who assembled there at matin-time;
Who, when Vice revelled and along the street
Tables were set, what time the bearer's bell
Rang to demand the dead at every door,
Came out into the meadows; and, awhile
Wandering in idleness, but not in folly,
Sate down in the high grass and in the shade
Of many a tree sun-proof—day after day,
When all was still and nothing to be heard
But the cicala's voice among the olives,
Relating in a ring, to banish care,
Their hundred tales.

Round the green hill they went,
Round underneath—first to a splendid house,
Gherardi, as an old tradition runs,
That on the left, just rising from the vale;
A place for Luxury—the painted rooms,
The open galleries and middle court
Not unprepared, fragrant and gay with flowers.
Then westward to another, nobler yet;
That on the right, now known as the Palmieri,
Where Art with Nature vied—a Paradise
With verdurous walls, and many a trellissed walk
All rose and jasmine, many a twilight-glade
Crossed by the deer. Then to the Ladies' Vale;

270

And the clear lake, that as by magic seemed
To lift up to the surface every stone
Of lustre there, and the diminutive fish
Innumerable, dropt with crimson and gold,
Now motionless, now glancing to the sun.

Who has not dwelt on their voluptuous day?
The morning-banquet by the fountain-side,
While the small birds rejoiced on every bough;
The dance that followed, and the noon-tide slumber;
Then the tales told in turn, as round they lay
On carpets, the fresh waters murmuring;
And the short interval of pleasant talk
Till supper-time, when many a siren-voice
Sung down the stars; and, as they left the sky,
The torches, planted in the sparkling grass,
And every where among the glowing flowers,
Burnt bright and brighter.—He, whose dream it was,
(It was no more) sleeps in a neighbouring vale;
Sleeps in the church, where, in his ear, I ween,
The Friar poured out his wondrous catalogue;
A ray, imprimis, of the star that shone
To the Wise Men; a vial-ful of sounds,
The musical chimes of the great bells that hung
In Solomon's Temple; and, though last not least,
A feather from the Angel Gabriel's wing,
Dropt in the Virgin's chamber. That dark ridge,
Stretching south-east, conceals it from our sight;
Not so his lowly roof and scanty farm,
His copse and rill, if yet a trace be left,
Who lived in Val di Pesa, suffering long
Want and neglect and (far, far worse) reproach,
With calm, unclouded mind. The glimmering tower

271

On the grey rock beneath, his land-mark once,
Now serves for ours, and points out where he ate
His bread with cheerfulness. Who sees him not
('Tis his own sketch—he drew it from himself)
Laden with cages from his shoulder slung,
And sallying forth, while yet the morn is grey,
To catch a thrush on every lime-twig there;
Or in the wood among his wood-cutters;
Or in the tavern by the highway-side
At tric-trac with the miller; or at night,
Doffing his rustic suit, and, duly clad,
Entering his closet, and, among his books,
Among the Great of every age and clime,
A numerous court, turning to whom he pleased,
Questioning each why he did this or that,
And learning how to overcome the fear
Of poverty and death?

Nearer we hail
Thy sunny slope, Arcetri, sung of Old
For its green wine; dearer to me, to most,
As dwelt on by that great Astronomer,
Seven years a prisoner at the city-gate,
Let in but in his grave-clothes. Sacred be
His villa (justly was it called The Gem!)
Sacred the lawn, where many a cypress threw
Its length of shadow, while he watched the stars!
Sacred the vineyard, where, while yet his sight
Glimmered, at blush of morn he dressed his vines,
Chanting aloud in gaiety of heart
Some verse of Ariosto!—There, unseen,

272

In manly beauty Milton stood before him,
Gazing with reverent awe—Milton, his guest,
Just then come forth, all life and enterprise;
He in his old age and extremity,
Blind, at noon-day exploring with his staff;
His eyes upturned as to the golden sun,
His eye-balls idly rolling. Little then
Did Galileo think whom he received;
That in his hand he held the hand of one
Who could requite him—who would spread his name
O'er lands and seas—great as himself, nay greater;
Milton as little that in him he saw,
As in a glass, what he himself should be,
Destined so soon to fall on evil days
And evil tongues—so soon, alas, to live
In darkness, and with dangers compassed round,
And solitude.

Well-pleased, could we pursue
The Arno, from his birth-place in the clouds,
So near the yellow Tiber's—springing up
From his four fountains on the Apennine,
That mountain-ridge a sea-mark to the ships
Sailing on either sea. Downward he runs,
Scattering fresh verdure through the desolate wild,
Down by the City of Hermits, and the woods
That only echo to the choral hymn;
Then through these gardens to the Tuscan sea,
Reflecting castles, convents, villages,
And those great Rivals in an elder day,
Florence and Pisa—who have given him fame,
Fame everlasting, but who stained so oft
His troubled waters. Oft, alas, were seen,
When flight, pursuit, and hideous rout were there,

273

Hands, clad in gloves of steel, held up imploring;
The man, the hero, on his foaming steed
Borne underneath, already in the realms
Of Darkness.—Nor did night or burning noon
Bring respite. Oft, as that great Artist saw,
Whose pencil had a voice, the cry “To arms!”
And the shrill trumpet hurried up the bank
Those who had stolen an hour to breast the tide,
And wash from their unharnessed limbs the blood
And sweat of battle. Sudden was the rush,
Violent the tumult; for, already in sight,
Nearer and nearer yet the danger drew;
Each every sinew straining, every nerve,
Each snatching up, and girding, buckling on
Morion and greave and shirt of twisted mail,
As for his life—no more perchance to taste,
Arno, the grateful freshness of thy glades,
Thy waters—where, exulting, he had felt
A swimmer's transport, there, alas, to float
And welter.—Nor between the gusts of War,
When flocks were feeding, and the shepherd's pipe
Gladdened the valley, when, but not unarmed,
The sower came forth, and following him that ploughed,
Threw in the seed—did thy indignant waves
Escape pollution. Sullen was the splash,
Heavy and swift the plunge, when they received
The key that just had grated on the ear
Of Ugolino, ever-closing up
That dismal dungeon thenceforth to be named
The Tower of Famine.—Once indeed 'twas thine,
When many a winter-flood, thy tributary,
Was through its rocky glen rushing, resounding,
And thou wert in thy might, to save, restore

274

A charge most precious. To the nearest ford,
Hastening, a horseman from Arezzo came,
Careless, impatient of delay, a babe
Slung in a basket to the knotty staff
That lay athwart his saddle-bow. He spurs,
He enters; and his horse, alarmed, perplexed,
Halts in the midst. Great is the stir, the strife;
And lo, an atom on that dangerous sea,
The babe is floating! Fast and far he flies;
Now tempest-rocked, now whirling round and round,
But not to perish. By thy willing waves
Borne to the shore, among the bulrushes
The ark has rested; and unhurt, secure,
As on his mother's breast he sleeps within,
All peace! or never had the nations heard
That voice so sweet, which still enchants, inspires;
That voice, which sung of love, of liberty.
Petrarch lay there!—And such the images
That here spring up for ever, in the Young
Kindling poetic fire! Such they that came
And clustered round our Milton, when at eve,
Reclined beside thee, Arno; when at eve,
Led on by thee, he wandered with delight,
Framing Ovidian verse, and through thy groves
Gathering wild myrtle. Such the Poet's dreams;
Yet not such only. For look round and say,
Where is the ground that did not drink warm blood,
The echo that had learnt not to articulate
The cry of murder?—Fatal was the day
To Florence, when ('twas in a narrow street
North of that temple, where the truly great
Sleep, not unhonoured, not unvisited;
That temple sacred to the Holy Cross—

275

There is the house—that house of the Donati,
Towerless, and left long since, but to the last
Braving assault—all rugged, all embossed
Below, and still distinguished by the rings
Of brass, that held in war and festival-time
Their family-standards) fatal was the day
To Florence, when, at morn, at the ninth hour,
A noble Dame in weeds of widowhood,
Weeds by so many to be worn so soon,
Stood at her door; and, like a sorceress, flung
Her dazzling spell. Subtle she was, and rich,
Rich in a hidden pearl of heavenly light,
Her daughter's beauty; and too well she knew
Its virtue! Patiently she stood and watched;
Nor stood alone—but spoke not—In her breast
Her purpose lay; and, as a Youth passed by,
Clad for the nuptial rite, she smiled and said,
Lifting a corner of the maiden's veil,
“This had I treasured up in secret for thee.
This hast thou lost!” He gazed and was undone!
Forgetting—not forgot—he broke the bond,
And paid the penalty, losing his life
At the bridge-foot; and hence a world of woe!
Vengeance for vengeance crying, blood for blood;
No intermission! Law, that slumbers not,
And, like the Angel with the flaming sword,
Sits over all, at once chastising, healing,
Himself the Avenger, went; and every street
Ran red with mutual slaughter—though sometimes
The young forgot the lesson they had learnt,

276

And loved when they should hate—like thee, Imelda,
Thee and thy Paolo. When last ye met
In that still hour (the heat, the glare was gone,
Not so the splendour—through the cedar-grove
A radiance streamed like a consuming fire,
As though the glorious orb, in its descent,
Had come and rested there) when last ye met,
And thy relentless brothers dragged him forth,
It had been well, hadst thou slept on, Imelda,
Nor from thy trance of fear awaked, as night
Fell on that fatal spot, to wish thee dead,
To track him by his blood, to search, to find,
Then fling thee down to catch a word, a look,
A sigh, if yet thou couldst (alas, thou couldst not)
And die, unseen, unthought of—from the wound
Sucking the poison.

Yet, when Slavery came,
Worse followed. Genius, Valour left the land,
Indignant—all that had from age to age
Adorned, ennobled; and head-long they fell,
Tyrant and slave. For deeds of violence,
Done in broad day and more than half redeemed
By many a great and generous sacrifice
Of self to others, came the unpledged bowl,
The stab of the stiletto. Gliding by
Unnoticed, in slouched hat and muffling cloak,
That just discovered, Caravaggio-like,

277

A swarthy cheek, black brow, and eye of flame,
The Bravo stole, and o'er the shoulder plunged
To the heart's core, or from beneath the ribs
Slanting (a surer path, as some averred)
Struck upward—then slunk off, or, if pursued,
Made for the Sanctuary, and there along
The glimmering aisle among the worshippers
Wandered with restless step and jealous look,
Dropping thick blood.—Misnamed to lull alarm,
In every Palace was The Laboratory,
Where he within brewed poisons swift and slow,
That scattered terror 'till all things seemed poisonous,
And brave men trembled if a hand held out
A nosegay or a letter; while the Great
Drank only from the Venice-glass, that broke,
That shivered, scattering round it as in scorn,
If aught malignant, aught of thine was there,
Cruel Tophana; and pawned provinces
For that miraculous gem, the gem that gave
A sign infallible of coming ill,
That clouded though the vehicle of death
Were an invisible perfume. Happy then
The guest to whom at sleeping-time 'twas said,
But in an under-voice (a lady's page
Speaks in no louder) “Pass not on. That door
Leads to another which awaits thy coming,
One in the floor—now left, alas, unlocked.
No eye detects it—lying under-foot,
Just as thou enterest, at the threshold-stone;

278

Ready to fall and plunge thee into night
And long oblivion!”—In that Evil Hour
Where lurked not danger? Through the fairy-land
No seat of pleasure glittering half-way down,
No hunting-place—but with some damning spot
That will not be washed out! There, at Caïano,
Where, when the hawks were mewed and Evening came,
Pulci would set the table in a roar
With his wild lay—there, where the Sun descends,
And hill and dale are lost, veiled with his beams,
The fair Venetian died, she and her lord—
Died of a posset drugged by him who sat
And saw them suffer, flinging back the charge;
The murderer on the murdered.—Sobs of Grief,
Sounds inarticulate — suddenly stopt,
And followed by a struggle and a gasp,
A gasp in death, are heard yet in Cerreto,
Along the marble halls and stair-cases,
Nightly at twelve; and, at the self-same hour,
Shrieks, such as penetrate the inmost soul,
Such as awake the innocent babe to long,
Long wailing, echo through the emptiness
Of that old den far up among the hills,

279

Frowning on him who comes from Pietra-Mala:
In them, alas, within five days and less,
Two unsuspecting victims, passing fair,
Welcomed with kisses, and slain cruelly,
One with the knife, one with the fatal noose.

But lo, the Sun is setting; earth and sky
One blaze of glory—What we saw but now,
As though it were not, though it had not been!
He lingers yet; and, lessening to a point,
Shines like the eye of Heaven—then withdraws;
And from the zenith to the utmost skirts
All is celestial red! The hour is come,
When they that sail along the distant seas,
Languish for home; and they that in the morn
Said to sweet friends “farewell,” melt as at parting;
When, just gone forth, the pilgrim, if he hears,
As now we hear it—wandering round the hill,
The bell that seems to mourn the dying day,
Slackens his pace and sighs, and those he loved
Loves more than ever. But who feels it not?
And well may we, for we are far away.

280

THE PILGRIM.

It was an hour of universal joy.
The lark was up and at the gate of heaven,
Singing, as sure to enter when he came;
The butterfly was basking in my path,
His radiant wings unfolded. From below
The bell of prayer rose slowly, plaintively;
And odours, such as welcome in the day,
Such as salute the early traveller,
And come and go, each sweeter than the last,
Were rising. Hill and valley breathed delight;
And not a living thing but blessed the hour!
In every bush and brake there was a voice
Responsive!

From the Thrasymene, that now
Slept in the sun, a lake of molten gold,
And from the shore that once, when armies met,
Rocked to and fro unfelt, so terrible
The rage, the slaughter, I had turned away;
The path, that led me, leading through a wood,
A fairy-wilderness of fruits and flowers,
And by a brook that, in the day of strife,
Ran blood, but now runs amber—when a glade,
Far, far within, sunned only at noon-day,
Suddenly opened. Many a bench was there,
Each round its ancient elm; and many a track,

281

Well-known to them that from the high-way loved
Awhile to deviate. In the midst a cross
Of mouldering stone as in a temple stood,
Solemn, severe; coeval with the trees
That round it in majestic order rose;
And on the lowest step a Pilgrim knelt
In fervent prayer. He was the first I saw,
(Save in the tumult of a midnight-masque,
A revel, where none cares to play his part,
And they, that speak, at once dissolve the charm)
The first in sober truth, no counterfeit;
And, when his orisons were duly paid,
He rose, and we exchanged, as all are wont,
A traveller's greeting.

Young, and of an age
When Youth is most attractive, when a light
Plays round and round, reflected, while it lasts,
From some attendant Spirit, that ere long
(His charge relinquished with a sigh, a tear)
Wings his flight upward—with a look he won
My favour; and, the spell of silence broke,
I could not but continue.—“Whence,” I asked,
“Whence art thou?”—“From Mont' alto,” he replied,
“My native village in the Apennines.”—
“And whither journeying?”—“To the holy shrine
Of Saint Antonio in the City of Padua.
Perhaps, if thou hast ever gone so far,
Thou wilt direct my course.”—“Most willingly;
But thou hast much to do, much to endure,
Ere thou hast entered where the silver lamps
Burn ever. Tell me ... I would not transgress,
Yet ask I must ... what could have brought thee forth,
Nothing in act or thought to be atoned for?”—
“It was a vow I made in my distress.

282

We were so blest, none were so blest as we,
Till Sickness came. First, as death-struck, I fell;
Then my beloved Sister; and ere long,
Worn with continual watchings, night and day,
Our saint-like mother. Worse and worse she grew;
And in my anguish, my despair, I vowed,
That if she lived, if Heaven restored her to us,
I would forthwith, and in a Pilgrim's weeds,
Visit that holy shrine. My vow was heard;
And therefore am I come.”—“Blest be thy steps;
And may those weeds, so reverenced of old,
Guard thee in danger!”—“They are nothing worth.
But they are worn in humble confidence;
Nor would I for the richest robe resign them,
Wrought, as they were, by those I love so well,
Lauretta and my sister; theirs the task,
But none to them, a pleasure, a delight,
To ply their utmost skill, and send me forth
As best became this service. Their last words,
‘Fare thee well, Carlo. We shall count the hours!’
Will not go from me.”—“Health and strength be thine
In thy long travel! May no sun-beam strike;
No vapour cling and wither! May'st thou be,
Sleeping or waking, sacred and secure;
And, when again thou com'st, thy labour done,
Joy be among ye! In that happy hour
All will pour forth to bid thee welcome, Carlo;
And there is one, or I am much deceived,
One thou hast named, who will not be the last.”—
“Oh, she is true as Truth itself can be!
But ah, thou know'st her not. Would that thou couldst!
My steps I quicken when I think of her;
For, though they take me further from her door,
I shall return the sooner.”

283

AN INTERVIEW.

Pleasure, that comes unlooked-for, is thrice welcome;
And, if it stir the heart, if aught be there,
That may hereafter in a thoughtful hour
Wake but a sigh, 'tis treasured up among
The things most precious! and the day it came
Is noted as a white day in our lives.

The sun was wheeling westward, and the cliffs
And nodding woods, that everlastingly
(Such the dominion of thy mighty voice,
Thy voice, Velino, uttered in the mist)
Hear thee and answer thee, were left at length
For others still as noon; and on we strayed
From wild to wilder, nothing hospitable
Seen up or down, no bush or green or dry,
That ancient symbol at the cottage-door,
Offering refreshment—when Luigi cried,
“Well, of a thousand tracks we chose the best!”
And, turning round an oak, oracular once,
Now lightning-struck, a cave, a thorough-fare
For all that came, each entrance a broad arch,
Whence many a deer, rustling his velvet coat,
Had issued, many a gipsy and her brood
Peered forth, then housed again—the floor yet grey
With ashes, and the sides, where roughest, hung
Loosely with locks of hair—I looked and saw
What, seen in such an hour by Sancho Panza,

284

Had given his honest countenance a breadth,
His cheeks a flush of pleasure and surprise
Unknown before, had chained him to the spot,
And thou, Sir Knight, hadst traversed hill and dale,
Squire-less.—Below and winding far away,
A narrow glade unfolded, such as Spring
Broiders with flowers, and, when the moon is high,
The hare delights to race in, scattering round
The silvery dews. Cedar and cypress threw
Singly their depth of shadow, chequering
The greensward, and, what grew in frequent tufts,
An underwood of myrtle, that by fits
Sent up a gale of fragrance. Through the midst,
Reflecting, as it ran, purple and gold,
A rain-bow's splendour (somewhere in the east
Rain-drops were falling fast) a rivulet
Sported as loth to go; and on the bank
Stood (in the eyes of one, if not of both,
Worth all the rest and more) a sumpter-mule
Well-laden, while two menials as in haste
Drew from his ample panniers, ranging round
Viands and fruits on many a shining salver,
And plunging in the cool translucent wave
Flasks of delicious wine.—Anon a horn
Blew, through the champain bidding to the feast,
Its jocund note to other ears addressed,
Not ours; and, slowly coming by a path,
That, ere it issued from an ilex-grove,
Was seen far inward, though along the glade
Distinguished only by a fresher verdure,
Peasants approached, one leading in a leash
Beagles yet panting, one with various game

285

In rich confusion slung, before, behind,
Leveret and quail and pheasant. All announced
The chase as over; and ere long appeared,
Their horses full of fire, champing the curb,
For the white foam was dry upon the flank,
Two in close converse, each in each delighting,
Their plumage waving as instinct with life;
A Lady young and graceful, and a Youth,
Yet younger, bearing on a falconer's glove,
As in the golden, the romantic time,
His falcon hooded. Like some spirit of air,
Or fairy-vision, such as feigned of old,
The Lady, while her courser pawed the ground,
Alighted; and her beauty, as she trod
The enamelled bank, bruising nor herb nor flower,
That place illumined. Ah, who should she be,
And with her brother, as when last we met,
(When the first lark had sung ere half was said,
And as she stood, bidding adieu, her voice,
So sweet it was, recalled me like a spell)
Who but Angelica?—That day we gave
To pleasure, and, unconscious of their flight,
Another and another! hers a home
Dropt from the sky amid the wild and rude,
Loretto-like; where all was as a dream,
A dream spun out of some Arabian tale
Read or related in a jasmine bower,
Some balmy eve. The rising moon we hailed,
Duly, devoutly, from a vestibule
Of many an arch, o'erwrought and lavishly
With many a labyrinth of sylphs and flowers,
When Raphael and his school from Florence came,
Filling the land with splendour—nor less oft

286

Watched her, declining, from a silent dell,
Not silent once, what time in rivalry
Tasso, Guarini, waved their wizard-wands,
Peopling the groves from Arcady, and lo,
Fair forms appeared, murmuring melodious verse,
—Then, in their day, a sylvan theatre,
Mossy the seats, the stage a verdurous floor,
The scenery rock and shrub-wood, Nature's own;
Nature the Architect.

289

ROME.

I am in Rome! Oft as the morning-ray
Visits these eyes, waking at once I cry,
Whence this excess of joy? What has befallen me?
And from within a thrilling voice replies,
Thou art in Rome! A thousand busy thoughts
Rush on my mind, a thousand images;
And I spring up as girt to run a race!

Thou art in Rome! the City that so long
Reigned absolute, the mistress of the world;

290

The mighty vision that the prophets saw,
And trembled; that from nothing, from the least,
The lowliest village (What but here and there
A reed-roofed cabin by the river side?)
Grew into every thing; and, year by year,
Patiently, fearlessly, working her way
O'er brook and field, o'er continent and sea,
Not like the merchant with his merchandize,
Or traveller with staff and scrip exploring,
But ever hand to hand and foot to foot,
Through nations numberless in battle-array,
Each behind each, each, when the other fell,
Up and in arms, at length subdued them All.

Thou art in Rome! the City, where the Gauls,
Entering at sun-rise through her open gates,
And, through her streets silent and desolate,
Marching to slay, thought they saw Gods, not men;
The City, that, by temperance, fortitude,
And love of glory, towered above the clouds,
Then fell—but, falling, kept the highest seat,
And in her loneliness, her pomp of woe,
Where now she dwells, withdrawn into the wild,
Still o'er the mind maintains, from age to age,
Her empire undiminished.—There, as though
Grandeur attracted Grandeur, are beheld
All things that strike, ennoble—from the depths
Of Egypt, from the classic fields of Greece,
Her groves, her temples—all things that inspire
Wonder, delight! Who would not say the Forms
Most perfect, most divine, had by consent
Flocked thither to abide eternally,
Within those silent chambers where they dwell,
In happy intercourse?—And I am there!
Ah, little thought I, when in school I sate,
A school-boy on his bench, at early dawn
Glowing with Roman story, I should live

291

To tread the Appian, once an avenue
Of monuments most glorious, palaces,
Their doors sealed up and silent as the night,
The dwellings of the illustrious dead—to turn
Toward Tibur, and, beyond the City-gate,
Pour out my unpremeditated verse
Where on his mule I might have met so oft
Horace himself—or climb the Palatine,
Dreaming of old Evander and his guest,
Dreaming and lost on that proud eminence,
Long while the seat of Rome, hereafter found
Less than enough (so monstrous was the brood
Engendered there, so Titan-like) to lodge
One in his madness; and inscribe my name,
My name and date, on some broad aloe-leaf,
That shoots and spreads within those very walls
Where Virgil read aloud his tale divine,
Where his voice faltered and a mother wept
Tears of delight!

But what the narrow space
Just underneath? In many a heap the ground
Heaves, as if Ruin in a frantic mood
Had done his utmost. Here and there appears,
As left to show his handy-work not ours,
An idle column, a half-buried arch,
A wall of some great temple.—It was once,
And long, the centre of their Universe,
The Forum—whence a mandate, eagle-winged,

292

Went to the ends of the earth. Let us descend
Slowly. At every step much may be lost.
The very dust we tread, stirs as with life:
And not a breath but from the ground sends up
Something of human grandeur.

We are come,
Are now where once the mightiest spirits met
In terrible conflict; this, while Rome was free,
The noblest theatre on this side Heaven!
—Here the first Brutus stood, when o'er the corse
Of her so chaste all mourned, and from his cloud
Burst like a God. Here, holding up the knife
That ran with blood, the blood of his own child,
Virginius called down vengeance.—But whence spoke
They who harangued the people; turning now
To the twelve tables, now with lifted hands
To the Capitoline Jove, whose fulgent shape
In the unclouded azure shone far off,
And to the shepherd on the Alban mount
Seemed like a star new-risen? Where were ranged
In rough array as on their element,
The beaks of those old galleys, destined still
To brave the brunt of war—at last to know
A calm far worse, a silence as in death?
All spiritless; from that disastrous hour
When he, the bravest, gentlest of them all,
Scorning the chains he could not hope to break,
Fell on his sword!

Along the Sacred Way

293

Hither the triumph came, and, winding round
With acclamation, and the martial clang
Of instruments, and cars laden with spoil,
Stopped at the sacred stair that then appeared,
Then thro' the darkness broke, ample, star-bright,
As tho' it led to heaven. 'Twas night; but now
A thousand torches, turning night to day,
Blazed, and the victor, springing from his seat,
Went up and, kneeling as in fervent prayer,
Entered the Capitol. But what are they
Who at the foot withdraw, a mournful train
In fetters? And who, yet incredulous,
Now gazing wildly round, now on his sons,
On those so young, well-pleased with all they see,
Staggers along, the last?—They are the fallen,
Those who were spared to grace the chariot-wheels;
And there they parted, where the road divides,
The victor and the vanquished—there withdrew;
He to the festal board, and they to die.

Well might the great, the mighty of the world,
They who were wont to fare deliciously
And war but for a kingdom more or less,
Shrink back nor from their thrones endure to look,
To think that way! Well might they in their pomp
Humble themselves, and kneel and supplicate
To be delivered from a dream like this!

Here Cincinnatus passed, his plough the while
Left in the furrow; and how many more,
Whose laurels fade not, who still walk the earth,

294

Consuls, Dictators, still in Curule state
Sit and decide; and, as of old in Rome,
Name but their names, set every heart on fire!

Here, in his bonds, he whom the phalanx saved not,
The last on Philip's throne; and the Numidian,
So soon to say, stript of his cumbrous robe,
Stript to the skin, and in his nakedness
Thrust under-ground, “How cold this bath of yours!”
And thy proud queen, Palmyra, thro' the sands
Pursued, o'ertaken on her dromedary;
Whose temples, palaces, a wondrous dream
That passes not away, for many a league
Illumine yet the desert. Some invoked
Death and escaped; the Egyptian, when her asp
Came from his covert under the green leaf;
And Hannibal himself; and she who said,
Taking the fatal cup between her hands,
“Tell him I would it had come yesterday;
For then it had not been his nuptial gift.”

Now all is changed; and here, as in the wild,
The day is silent, dreary as the night;
None stirring, save the herdsman and his herd,
Savage alike; or they that would explore,
Discuss and learnedly; or they that come,
(And there are many who have crossed the earth)
That they may give the hours to meditation,
And wander, often saying to themselves,
“This was the Roman Forum!”

295

A FUNERAL.

Whence this delay?”—“Along the crowded street
A Funeral comes, and with unusual pomp.”
So I withdrew a little and stood still,
While it went by. “She died as she deserved,”
Said an Abate, gathering up his cloak,
And with a shrug retreating as the tide
Flowed more and more.—“But she was beautiful!”
Replied a soldier of the Pontiff's guard.
“And innocent as beautiful!” exclaimed
A Matron sitting in her stall, hung round
With garlands, holy pictures, and what not?
Her Alban grapes and Tusculan figs displayed
In rich profusion. From her heart she spoke;
And I accosted her to hear her story.
“The stab,” she cried, “was given in jealousy;
But never fled a purer spirit to heaven,
As thou wilt say, or much my mind misleads,
When thou hast seen her face. Last night at dusk,
When on her way from vespers—None were near,
None save her serving-boy who knelt and wept,
But what could tears avail him, when she fell—
Last night at dusk, the clock then striking nine,
Just by the fountain—that before the church,
The church she always used, St. Isidore's—
Alas, I knew her from her earliest youth,
That excellent lady. Ever would she say,
Good even, as she passed, and with a voice
Gentle as theirs in heaven!”—But now by fits

296

A dull and dismal noise assailed the ear,
A wail, a chant, louder and louder yet;
And now a strange fantastic troop appeared!
Thronging, they came—as from the shades below;
All of a ghostly white! “O say,” I cried,
“Do not the living here bury the dead?
Do Spirits come and fetch them? What are these,
That seem not of this World, and mock the Day;
Each with a burning taper in his hand?”—
“It is an ancient Brotherhood thou seest.
Such their apparel. Through the long, long line,
Look where thou wilt, no likeness of a man;
The living masked, the dead alone uncovered.
But mark”—And, lying on her funeral-couch,
Like one asleep, her eyelids closed, her hands
Folded together on her modest breast,
As 't were her nightly posture, through the crowd
She came at last—and richly, gaily clad,
As for a birth-day feast! But breathes she not?
A glow is on her cheek—and her lips move!
And now a smile is there—how heavenly sweet!
“Oh no!” replied the Dame, wiping her tears,
But with an accent less of grief than anger,
“No, she will never, never wake again!”

Death, when we meet the Spectre in our walks,
As we did yesterday and shall to-morrow,
Soon grows familiar—like most other things,
Seen, not observed; but in a foreign clime,
Changing his shape to something new and strange,
(And through the world he changes as in sport,
Affect he greatness or humility)
Knocks at the heart. His form and fashion here
To me, I do confess, reflect a gloom,
A sadness round; yet one I would not lose;
Being in unison with all things else
In this, this land of shadows, where we live
More in past time than present, where the ground,

297

League beyond league, like one great cemetery,
Is covered o'er with mouldering monuments;
And, let the living wander where they will,
They cannot leave the footsteps of the dead.

Oft, where the burial-rite follows so fast
The agony, oft coming, nor from far,
Must a fond father meet his darling child,
(Him who at parting climbed his knees and clung)
Clay-cold and wan, and to the bearers cry,
“Stand, I conjure ye!”

Seen thus destitute,
What are the greatest? They must speak beyond
A thousand homilies. When Raphael went,
His heavenly face the mirror of his mind,
His mind a temple for all lovely things
To flock to and inhabit—when He went,
Wrapt in his sable cloak, the cloak he wore,
To sleep beneath the venerable Dome,
By those attended, who in life had loved,
Had worshipped, following in his steps to Fame,
('Twas on an April-day, when Nature smiles)
All Rome was there. But, ere the march began,
Ere to receive their charge the bearers came,
Who had not sought him? And when all beheld
Him, where he lay, how changed from yesterday,
Him in that hour cut off, and at his head
His last great work; when, entering in, they looked
Now on the dead, then on that master-piece,
Now on his face, lifeless and colourless,
Then on those forms divine that lived and breathed,
And would live on for ages—all were moved;
And sighs burst forth, and loudest lamentations.

301

THE CAMPAGNA OF ROME.

Have none appeared as tillers of the ground,
None since They went—as though it still were theirs,
And they might come and claim their own again?
Was the last plough a Roman's?

From this Seat,
Sacred for ages, whence, as Virgil sings,
The Queen of Heaven, alighting from the sky,
Looked down and saw the armies in array,
Let us contemplate; and, where dreams from Jove
Descended on the sleeper, where perhaps
Some inspirations may be lingering still,
Some glimmerings of the future or the past,
Let us await their influence; silently
Revolving, as we rest on the green turf,
The changes from that hour when He from Troy
Came up the Tiber; when refulgent shields,
No strangers to the iron-hail of war,
Streamed far and wide, and dashing oars were heard
Among those woods where Silvia's stag was lying,
His antlers gay with flowers; among those woods
Where by the Moon, that saw and yet withdrew not,
Two were so soon to wander and be slain,
Two lovely in their lives, nor in their death
Divided.

302

Then, and hence to be discerned,
How many realms, pastoral and warlike, lay
Along this plain, each with its schemes of power,
Its little rivalships! What various turns
Of fortune there; what moving accidents
From ambuscade and open violence!
Mingling, the sounds came up; and hence how oft
We might have caught among the trees below,
Glittering with helm and shield, the men of Tibur;
Or in Greek vesture, Greek their origin,
Some embassy, ascending to Præneste;
How oft descried, without thy gates, Aricia,
Entering the solemn grove for sacrifice,
Senate and People!—Each a busy hive,
Glowing with life!

But all ere long are lost
In one. We look, and where the river rolls
Southward its shining labyrinth, in her strength.
A City, girt with battlements and towers,
On seven small hills is rising. Round about,
At rural work, the Citizens are seen,
None unemployed; the noblest of them all
Binding their sheaves or on their threshing-floors,
As though they had not conquered. Every where
Some trace of valour or heroic toil!
Here is the sacred field of the Horatii.
There are the Quintian meadows. Here the Hill
How holy, where a generous people, twice,
Twice going forth, in terrible anger sate
Armed; and, their wrongs redressed, at once gave way,
Helmet and shield, and sword and spear thrown down,
And every hand uplifted, every heart

303

Poured out in thanks to heaven.

Once again
We look; and lo, the sea is white with sails
Innumerable, wafting to the shore
Treasures untold; the vale, the promontories,
A dream of glory; temples, palaces,
Called up as by enchantment; aqueducts
Among the groves and glades rolling along
Rivers, on many an arch high over-head;
And in the centre, like a burning sun,
The Imperial City! They have now subdued
All nations. But where they who led them forth;
Who, when at length released by victory,
(Buckler and spear hung up—but not to rust)
Held poverty no evil, no reproach,
Living on little with a cheerful mind,
The Decii, the Fabricii? Where the spade,
And reaping-hook, among their household-things
Duly transmitted? In the hands of men
Made captive; while the master and his guests,
Reclining, quaff in gold, and roses swim,
Summer and winter, through the circling year,
On their Falernian—in the hands of men
Dragged into slavery with how many more
Spared but to die, a public spectacle,
In combat with each other, and required
To fall with grace, with dignity—to sink
While life is gushing, and the plaudits ring
Faint and yet fainter on their failing ear,
As models for the sculptor.

But their days,
Their hours are numbered. Hark, a yell, a shriek,
A barbarous out-cry, loud and louder yet,
That echoes from the mountains to the sea!
And mark, beneath us, like a bursting cloud,
The battle moving onward! Had they slain

304

All, that the Earth should from her womb bring forth
New nations to destroy them? From the depth
Of forests, from what none had dared explore,
Regions of thrilling ice, as though in ice
Engendered, multiplied, they pour along,
Shaggy and huge! Host after host, they come;
The Goth, the Vandal; and again the Goth!

Once more we look, and all is still as night,
All desolate! Groves, temples, palaces,
Swept from the sight; and nothing visible,
Amid the sulphurous vapours that exhale
As from a land accurst, save here and there
An empty tomb, a fragment like the limb
Of some dismembered giant. In the midst
A City stands, her domes and turrets crowned
With many a cross; but they, that issue forth,
Wander like strangers who had built among
The mighty ruins, silent, spiritless;
And on the road, where once we might have met
Cæsar and Cato and men more than kings,
We meet, none else, the pilgrim and the beggar.

THE ROMAN PONTIFFS.

Those ancient men, what were they, who achieved
A sway beyond the greatest conquerors;
Setting their feet upon the necks of kings,
And, through the world, subduing, chaining down
The free, immortal spirit? Were they not
Mighty magicians? Theirs a wondrous spell.
Where true and false were with infernal art

305

Close-interwoven; where together met
Blessings and curses, threats and promises;
And with the terrors of Futurity
Mingled whate'er enchants and fascinates,
Music and painting, sculpture, rhetoric,
And dazzling light and darkness visible,
And architectural pomp, such as none else!
What in his day the Syracusan sought,
Another world to plant his engines on,
They had; and, having it, like gods not men
Moved this world at their pleasure. Ere they came,
Their shadows, stretching far and wide, were known;
And Two, that looked beyond the visible sphere,
Gave notice of their coming—he who saw
The Apocalypse; and he of elder time,
Who in an awful vision of the night
Saw the Four Kingdoms. Distant as they were,
Those holy men, well might they faint with fear!

306

THE NUN.

Tis over; and her lovely cheek is now
On her hard pillow—there, alas, to be
Nightly, through many and many a dreary hour,
Wan, often wet with tears, and (ere at length
Her place is empty, and another comes)
In anguish, in the ghastliness of death;
Hers never more to leave those mournful walls,

307

Even on her bier.

'Tis over; and the rite,
With all its pomp and harmony, is now
Floating before her. She arose at home,
To be the show, the idol of the day;
Her vesture gorgeous, and her starry head—
No rocket, bursting in the midnight-sky,
So dazzling. When to-morrow she awakes,
She will awake as though she still was there,
Still in her father's house; and lo, a cell
Narrow and dark, nought through the gloom discerned,
Nought save the crucifix, the rosary,
And the grey habit lying by to shroud
Her beauty and grace.

When on her knees she fell,
Entering the solemn place of consecration,
And from the latticed gallery came a chant
Of psalms, most saint-like, most angelical,
Verse after verse sung out how holily,
The strain returning, and still, still returning,
Methought it acted like a spell upon her,
And she was casting off her earthly dross;
Yet was it sad as sweet, and, ere it closed,
Came like a dirge. When her fair head was shorn,
And the long tresses in her hands were laid,
That she might fling them from her, saying, “Thus,
Thus I renounce the world and worldly things!”
When, as she stood, her bridal ornaments
Were, one by one, removed, even to the last,
That she might say, flinging them from her, “Thus,
Thus I renounce the world!” when all was changed,

308

And, as a nun, in homeliest guise she knelt,
Distinguished only by the crown she wore,
Her crown of lilies as the spouse of Christ,
Well might her strength forsake her, and her knees
Fail in that hour! Well might the holy man,
He, at whose feet she knelt, give as by stealth
('Twas in her utmost need; nor, while she lives,
Will it go from her, fleeting as it was)
That faint but fatherly smile, that smile of love
And pity!

Like a dream the whole is fled;
And they, that came in idleness to gaze
Upon the victim dressed for sacrifice,
Are mingling in the world; thou in thy cell
Forgot, Teresa. Yet, among them all,
None were so formed to love and to be loved,
None to delight, adorn; and on thee now
A curtain, blacker than the night, is dropped
For ever! In thy gentle bosom sleep
Feelings, affections, destined now to die,
To wither like the blossom in the bud,
Those of a wife, a mother; leaving there
A cheerless void, a chill as of the grave,
A languor and a lethargy of soul,
Death-like, and gathering more and more, till Death
Comes to release thee. Ah, what now to thee,
What now to thee the treasure of thy Youth?
As nothing!

But thou canst not yet reflect
Calmly; so many things, strange and perverse,
That meet, recoil, and go but to return,
The monstrous birth of one eventful day,
Troubling thy spirit—from the first at dawn,
The rich arraying for the nuptial feast,

309

To the black pall, the requiem. All in turn
Revisit thee, and round thy lowly bed
Hover, uncalled. Thy young and innocent heart,
How is it beating? Has it no regrets?
Discoverest thou no weakness lurking there?
But thine exhausted frame has sunk to rest.
Peace to thy slumbers!

THE FIRE-FLY.

There is an Insect, that, when Evening comes,
Small though he be and scarce distinguishable,
Like Evening clad in soberest livery,
Unsheathes his wings and through the woods and glades
Scatters a marvellous splendour. On he wheels,
Blazing by fits as from excess of joy,
Each gush of light a gush of ecstasy;
Nor unaccompanied; thousands that fling
A radiance all their own, not of the day,
Thousands as bright as he, from dusk till dawn,
Soaring, descending.

In the mother's lap
Well may the child put forth his little hands,
Singing the nursery song he learnt so soon;
And the young nymph, preparing for the dance

310

By brook or fountain-side, in many a braid
Wreathing her golden hair, well may she cry,
“Come hither;” and the shepherds, gathering round,
Shall say, “Floretta emulates the Night,
Spangling her head with stars.”

Oft have I met
This shining race, when in the Tusculan groves
My path no longer glimmered; oft among
Those trees, religious once and always green,
That still dream out their stories of old Rome
Over the Alban lake; oft met and hailed,
Where the precipitate Anio thunders down,
And through the surging mist a Poet's house
(So some aver, and who would not believe?)
Reveals itself.—Yet cannot I forget
Him, who rejoiced me in those walks at eve,
My earliest, pleasantest; who dwells unseen,
And in our northern clime, when all is still,
Nightly keeps watch, nightly in bush or brake
His lonely lamp rekindling. Unlike theirs,
His, if less dazzling, through the darkness knows
No intermission; sending forth its ray
Through the green leaves, a ray serene and clear
As Virtue's own.

316

THE FOUNTAIN.

It was a well
Of whitest marble, white as from the quarry;
And richly wrought with many a high relief,
Greek sculpture—in some earlier day perhaps
A tomb, and honoured with a hero's ashes.
The water from the rock filled and o'erflowed;
Then dashed away, playing the prodigal,
And soon was lost—stealing unseen, unheard,
Thro' the long grass, and round the twisted roots
Of aged trees; discovering where it ran
By the fresh verdure. Overcome with heat,
I threw me down; admiring, as I lay,
That shady nook, a singing-place for birds,
That grove so intricate, so full of flowers,
More than enough to please a child a-Maying.

The sun had set, a distant convent-bell
Ringing the Angelus; and now approached
The hour for stir and village-gossip there,
The hour Rebekah came, when from the well
She drew with such alacrity to serve
The stranger and his camels. Soon I heard
Footsteps; and lo, descending by a path
Trodden for ages, many a nymph appeared,
Appeared and vanished, bearing on her head
Her earthen pitcher. It called up the day
Ulysses landed there; and long I gazed,
Like one awaking in a distant time.

317

At length there came the loveliest of them all,
Her little brother dancing down before her;
And ever as he spoke, which he did ever,
Turning and looking up in warmth of heart
And brotherly affection. Stopping there,
She joined her rosy hands, and, filling them
With the pure element, gave him to drink;
And, while he quenched his thirst, standing on tip-toe,
Looked down upon him with a sister's smile,
Nor stirred till he had done, fixed as a statue.

Then hadst thou seen them as they stood, Canova,
Thou hadst endowed them with immortal youth;
And they had evermore lived undivided,
Winning all hearts—of all thy works the fairest.

BANDITTI.

Tis a wild life, fearful and full of change,
The mountain robber's. On the watch he lies,
Levelling his carbine at the passenger;
And, when his work is done, he dares not sleep.

Time was, the trade was nobler, if not honest;
When they that robbed, were men of better faith
Than kings or pontiffs; when, such reverence
The Poet drew among the woods and wilds,
A voice was heard, that never bade to spare,

318

Crying aloud, “Hence to the distant hills!
Tasso approaches; he, whose song beguiles
The day of half its hours; whose sorcery
Dazzles the sense, turning our forest-glades
To lists that blaze with gorgeous armoury,
Our mountain-caves to regal palaces.
Hence, nor descend till he and his are gone.
Let him fear nothing.”—When along the shore,
And by the path that, wandering on its way,
Leads through the fatal grove where Tully fell,
(Grey and o'ergrown, an ancient tomb is there)
He came and they withdrew, they were a race
Careless of life in others and themselves,
For they had learnt their lesson in a camp;
But not ungenerous. 'Tis no longer so.
Now crafty, cruel, torturing ere they slay
The unhappy captive, and with bitter jests
Mocking Misfortune; vain, fantastical,
Wearing whatever glitters in the spoil;
And most devout, though, when they kneel and pray,
With every bead they could recount a murder;
As by a spell they start up in array,
As by a spell they vanish—theirs a band,
Not as elsewhere of outlaws, but of such
As sow and reap, and at the cottage-door
Sit to receive, return the traveller's greeting;
Now in the garb of peace, now silently
Arming and issuing forth, led on by men
Whose names on innocent lips are words of fear,
Whose lives have long been forfeit.—Some there are
That, ere they rise to this bad eminence,
Lurk, night and day, the plague-spot visible,
The guilt that says, Beware; and mark we now

319

Him, where he lies, who couches for his prey
At the bridge-foot in some dark cavity
Scooped by the waters, or some gaping tomb,
Nameless and tenantless, whence the red fox
Slunk as he entered.

There he broods, in spleen
Gnawing his beard; his rough and sinewy frame
O'erwritten with the story of his life:
On his wan cheek a sabre-cut, well earned
In foreign warfare; on his breast the brand
Indelible, burnt in when to the port
He clanked his chain, among a hundred more
Dragged ignominiously; on every limb
Memorials of his glory and his shame,
Stripes of the lash and honourable scars,
And channels here and there worn to the bone
By galling fetters.

He comes slowly forth,
Unkennelling, and up that savage dell
Anxiously looks; his cruise, an ample gourd,
(Duly replenished from the vintner's cask)
Slung from his shoulder; in his breadth of belt
Two pistols and a dagger yet uncleansed,
A parchment scrawled with uncouth characters,
And a small vial, his last remedy,
His cure, when all things fail.

No noise is heard,
Save when the rugged bear and the gaunt wolf
Howl in the upper region, or a fish
Leaps in the gulf beneath. But now he kneels;
And (like a scout, when listening to the tramp
Of horse or foot) lays his experienced ear
Close to the ground, then rises and explores,
Then kneels again, and, his short rifle-gun
Against his cheek, waits patiently.

Two Monks,
Portly, grey-headed, on their gallant steeds,

320

Descend where yet a mouldering cross o'erhangs
The grave of one that from the precipice
Fell in an evil hour. Their bridle-bells
Ring merrily; and many a loud, long laugh
Re-echoes; but at once the sounds are lost.
Unconscious of the good in store below,
The holy fathers have turned off, and now
Cross the brown heath, ere long to wag their beards
Before my lady-abbess, and discuss
Things only known to the devout and pure
O'er her spiced bowl—then shrive the sister-hood,
Sitting by turns with an inclining ear
In the confessional.

He moves his lips
As with a curse—then paces up and down,
Now fast, now slow, brooding and muttering on;
Gloomy alike to him Future and Past.

But hark, the nimble tread of numerous feet!
'Tis but a dappled herd, come down to slake
Their thirst in the cool wave.

He turns and aims;
Then checks himself, unwilling to disturb
The sleeping echoes.—Once again he earths;
Slipping away to house with them beneath,
His old companions in that hiding-place,
The bat, the toad, the blind-worm, and the newt;
And hark, a footstep, firm and confident,
As of a man in haste. Nearer it draws;
And now is at the entrance of the den.
Ha! 'tis a comrade, sent to gather in
The band for some great enterprise.

Who wants
A sequel, may read on. The unvarnished tale,
That follows, will supply the place of one.
'Twas told me by the Count St. Angelo,
When in a blustering night he sheltered me
In that brave castle of his ancestors

321

O'er Garigliano, and is such indeed
As every day brings with it—in a land
Where laws are trampled on and lawless men
Walk in the sun; but it should not be lost,
For it may serve to bind us to our Country.

AN ADVENTURE.

Three days they lay in ambush at my gate,
Then sprung and led me captive. Many a wild
We traversed; but Rusconi, 'twas no less,
Marched by my side, and, when I thirsted, climbed
The cliffs for water; though, whene'er he spoke,
'Twas briefly, sullenly; and on he led,
Distinguished only by an amulet,
That in a golden chain hung from his neck,
A crystal of rare virtue. Night fell fast,
When on a heath, black and immeasurable,
He turned and bade them halt. 'Twas where the earth
Heaves o'er the dead—where erst some Alaric
Fought his last fight, and every warrior threw
A stone to tell for ages where he lay.

Then all advanced, and, ranging in a square,
Stretched forth their arms as on the holy cross,
From each to each their sable cloaks extending,
That, like the solemn hangings of a tent,
Covered us round; and in the midst I stood,
Weary and faint, and face to face with one,
Whose voice, whose look dispenses life and death,
Whose heart knows no relentings. Instantly

322

A light was kindled and the Bandit spoke.
“I know thee. Thou hast sought us, for the sport
Slipping thy blood-hounds with a hunter's cry;
And thou hast found at last. Were I as thou,
I in thy grasp as thou art now in ours,
Soon should I make a midnight-spectacle,
Soon, limb by limb, be mangled on a wheel,
Then gibbetted to blacken for the vultures.
But I would teach thee better—how to spare.
Write as I dictate. If thy ransom comes,
Thou liv'st. If not—but answer not, I pray,
Lest thou provoke me. I may strike thee dead;
And know, young man, it is an easier thing
To do it than to say it. Write, and thus.”—

I wrote. “'Tis well,” he cried. “A peasant-boy,
Trusty and swift of foot, shall bear it hence.
Meanwhile lie down and rest. This cloak of mine
Will serve thee; it has weathered many a storm.”

The watch was set; and twice it had been changed,
When morning broke, and a wild bird, a hawk,
Flew in a circle, screaming. I looked up,
And all were gone, save him who now kept guard
And on his arms lay musing. Young he seemed,
And sad, as though he could indulge at will
Some secret grief. “Thou shrinkest back,” he said,
“Well may'st thou, lying, as thou dost, so near
A Ruffian—one for ever linked and bound
To guilt and infamy. There was a time
When he had not perhaps been deemed unworthy,
When he had watched yon planet to its setting,
And dwelt with pleasure on the meanest thing
Nature gives birth to. Now, alas, 'tis past.

Wouldst thou know more? My story is an old one.
I loved, was scorned; I trusted, was betrayed;

323

And in my anguish, my necessity,
Met with the fiend, the tempter—in Rusconi.
‘Why thus?’ he cried. ‘Thou wouldst be free and dar'st not.
Come and assert thy birth-right while thou canst.
A robber's cave is better than a dungeon;
And death itself, what is it at the worst,
What, but a harlequin's leap?’ Him I had known,
Had served with, suffered with; and on the walls
Of Capua, while the moon went down, I swore
Allegiance on his dagger.—Dost thou ask
How I have kept my oath?—Thou shalt be told,
Cost what it may. But grant me, I implore,
Grant me a passport to some distant land,
That I may never, never more be named.
Thou wilt, I know thou wilt.

Two months ago,
When on a vineyard-hill we lay concealed
And scattered up and down as we were wont,
I heard a damsel singing to herself,
And soon espied her, coming all alone,
In her first beauty. Up a path she came,
Leafy and intricate, singing her song,
A song of love, by snatches; breaking off
If but a flower, an insect in the sun
Pleased for an instant; then as carelessly
The strain resuming, and, where'er she stopt,
Rising on tiptoe underneath the boughs
To pluck a grape in very wantonness.
Her look, her mien and maiden-ornaments
Shewed gentle birth; and, step by step, she came,
Nearer and nearer, to the dreadful snare.
None else were by; and, as I gazed unseen,
Her youth, her innocence and gaiety
Went to my heart! and, starting up, I breathed,
‘Fly—for your life!’ Alas, she shrieked, she fell;
And, as I caught her falling, all rushed forth.

324

‘A Wood-nymph!’ cried Rusconi. ‘By the light,
Lovely as Hebe! Lay her in the shade.’
I heard him not. I stood as in a trance.
‘What,’ he exclaimed with a malicious smile,
‘Wouldst thou rebel?’ I did as he required.
‘Now bear her hence to the well-head below;
A few cold drops will animate this marble.
Go! 'Tis an office all will envy thee;
But thou hast earned it.’ As I staggered down,
Unwilling to surrender her sweet body;
Her golden hair dishevelled on a neck
Of snow, and her fair eyes closed as in sleep,
Frantic with love, with hate, ‘Great God!’ I cried,
(I had almost forgotten how to pray;
But there are moments when the courage comes)
‘Why may I not, while yet—while yet I can,
Release her from a thraldom worse than death?’
'Twas done as soon as said. I kissed her brow,
And smote her with my dagger. A short cry
She uttered, but she stirred not; and to heaven
Her gentle spirit fled. 'Twas where the path
In its descent turned suddenly. No eye
Observed me, tho' their steps were following fast.
But soon a yell broke forth, and all at once
Levelled with deadly aim. Then I had ceased
To trouble or be troubled, and had now
(Would I were there!) been slumbering in my grave,
Had not Rusconi with a terrible shout
Thrown himself in between us, and exclaimed,
Grasping my arm, ‘'Tis bravely, nobly done!
Is it for deeds like these thou wear'st a sword?
Was this the business that thou cam'st upon?
—But 'tis his first offence, and let it pass.
Like the young tiger he has tasted blood,
And may do much hereafter. He can strike
Home to the hilt.’ Then in an under-tone,
‘Thus wouldst thou justify the pledge I gave,

325

When in the eyes of all I read distrust?
For once,’ and on his cheek, methought, I saw
The blush of virtue, ‘I will save thee, Albert;
Again I cannot.’”

Ere his tale was told,
As on the heath we lay, my ransom came;
And in six days, with no ungrateful mind,
Albert was sailing on a quiet sea.
—But the night wears, and thou art much in need
Of rest. The young Antonio, with his torch,
Is waiting to conduct thee to thy chamber.

NAPLES.

This region, surely, is not of the earth.
Was it not dropt from heaven? Not a grove,
Citron or pine or cedar, not a grot
Sea-worn and mantled with the gadding vine,
But breathes enchantment. Not a cliff but flings
On the clear wave some image of delight,
Some cabin-roof glowing with crimson flowers,
Some ruined temple or fallen monument,
To muse on as the bark is gliding by.
And be it mine to muse there, mine to glide,
From day-break, when the mountain pales his fire
Yet more and more, and from the mountain-top,
Till then invisible, a smoke ascends,
Solemn and slow, as erst from Ararat,
When he, the Patriarch, who escaped the Flood,
Was with his house-hold sacrificing there—
From day-break to that hour, the last and best,

326

When, one by one, the fishing-boats come forth,
Each with its glimmering lantern at the prow,
And, when the nets are thrown, the evening-hymn
Steals o'er the trembling waters.

Every where
Fable and Truth have shed, in rivalry,
Each her peculiar influence. Fable came
And laughed and sung, arraying Truth in flowers,
Like a young child her grandam. Fable came;
Earth, sea and sky reflecting, as she flew,
A thousand, thousand colours not their own:
And at her bidding, lo! a dark descent
To Tartarus, and those thrice happy fields,
Those fields with ether pure and purple light
Ever invested, scenes by Him portrayed,
Who here was wont to wander, here invoke
The sacred Muses, here receive, record
What they revealed, and on the western shore
Sleeps in a silent grove, o'erlooking thee,
Beloved Parthenope.

Yet here, methinks,
Truth wants no ornament, in her own shape
Filling the mind by turns with awe and love,
By turns inclining to wild ecstasy,
And soberest meditation. Here the vines
Wed, each her elm, and o'er the golden grain
Hang their luxuriant clusters, chequering
The sunshine; where, when cooler shadows fall
And the mild moon her fairy net-work weaves,
The lute or mandoline, accompanied
By many a voice yet sweeter than their own,
Kindles, nor slowly; and the dance displays
The gentle arts and witcheries of love,
Its hopes and fears and feignings, till the youth
Drops on his knee as vanquished, and the maid,

327

Her tambourine uplifting with a grace
Nature's and Nature's only, bids him rise.

But here the mighty Monarch underneath,
He in his palace of fire, diffuses round
A dazzling splendour. Here, unseen, unheard,
Opening another Eden in the wild,
His gifts he scatters; save, when issuing forth
In thunder, he blots out the sun, the sky,
And, mingling all things earthly as in scorn,
Exalts the valley, lays the mountain low,
Pours many a torrent from his burning lake,
And in an hour of universal mirth,
What time the trump proclaims the festival,
Buries some capital city, there to sleep
The sleep of ages—till a plough, a spade
Disclose the secret, and the eye of day
Glares coldly on the streets, the skeletons;
Each in his place, each in his gay attire,
And eager to enjoy.

Let us go round;
And let the sail be slack, the course be slow,
That at our leisure, as we coast along,
We may contèmplate, and from every scene
Receive its influence. The Cumæan towers,
There did they rise, sun-gilt; and here thy groves,
Delicious Baiæ. Here (what would they not?)
The masters of the earth, unsatisfied,
Built in the sea; and now the boatman steers
O'er many a crypt and vault yet glimmering,
O'er many a broad and indestructible arch,
The deep foundations of their palaces;
Nothing now heard ashore, so great the change,
Save when the sea-mew clamours, or the owl
Hoots in the temple.

What the mountainous Isle

328

Seen in the South? 'Tis where a Monster dwelt,
Hurling his victims from the topmost cliff;
Then and then only merciful, so slow,
So subtle were the tortures they endured.
Fearing and feared he lived, cursing and cursed;
And still the dungeons in the rock breathe out
Darkness, distemper. Strange, that one so vile
Should from his den strike terror through the world;
Should, where withdrawn in his decrepitude,
Say to the noblest, be they where they might,
“Go from the earth!” and from the earth they went.
Yet such things were—and will be, when mankind,
Losing all virtue, lose all energy;
And for the loss incur the penalty,
Trodden down and trampled.

Let us turn the prow
And, in the track of him who went to die,
Traverse this valley of waters, landing where
A waking dream awaits us. At a step
Two thousand years roll backward and we stand,
Like those so long within that awful Place,
Immovable, nor asking, Can it be?

Once did I linger there alone till day
Closed, and at length the calm of twilight came,
So grateful yet so solemn! At the fount,
Just where the three ways meet, I stood and looked,

329

('Twas near a noble house, the house of Pansa)
And all was still as in the long, long night
That followed, when the shower of ashes fell,
When they that sought Pompeii, sought in vain;
It was not to be found. But now a ray,
Bright and yet brighter, on the pavement glanced,
And on the wheel-track worn for centuries,
And on the stepping-stones from side to side,
O'er which the maidens, with their water-urns,
Were wont to trip so lightly. Full and clear,
The moon was rising, and at once revealed
The name of every dweller, and his craft;
Shining throughout with an unusual lustre,
And lighting up this City of the Dead.

Mark, where within, as though the embers lived,
The ample chimney-vault is dun with smoke.
There dwelt a miller; silent and at rest
His mill-stones now. In old companionship
Still do they stand as on the day he went,
Each ready for its office—but he comes not.
And there, hard by (where one in idleness
Has stopt to scrawl a ship, an armed man;
And in a tablet on the wall we read
Of shews ere long to be) a sculptor wrought,
Nor meanly; blocks, half-chiselled into life,
Waiting his call.—Here long, as yet attests
The trodden floor, an olive-merchant drew
From many an earthen jar, no more supplied;
And here from his a vintner served his guests
Largely, the stain of his o'erflowing cups
Fresh on the marble. On the bench, beneath,
They sate and quaffed and looked on them that passed,
Gravely discussing the last news from Rome.

But lo, engraven on a threshold-stone,
That word of courtesy so sacred once,
Hail! At a master's greeting we may enter.

330

And lo, a fairy-palace! every where,
As through the courts and chambers we advance,
Floors of mosaic, walls of arabesque,
And columns clustering in Patrician splendour.
But hark, a footstep! May we not intrude?
And now, methinks, I hear a gentle laugh,
And gentle voices mingling as in converse!
—And now a harp-string as struck carelessly,
And now—along the corridor it comes—
I cannot err, a filling as of baths!
—Ah, no, 'tis but a mockery of the sense,
Idle and vain! We are but where we were;
Still wandering in a City of the Dead!

336

A CHARACTER.

One of two things Montrioli may have,
My envy or compassion. Both he cannot.
Yet on he goes, numbering as miseries,
What least of all he would consent to lose,
What most indeed he prides himself upon,
And, for not having, most despises me.
“At morn the minister exacts an hour;
At noon the king. Then comes the council-board;
And then the chase, the supper. When, ah when,
The leisure and the liberty I sigh for?

337

Not when at home; at home a miscreant-crew,
That now no longer serve me, mine the service.
And then that old hereditary bore,
The steward, his stories longer than his rent-roll,
Who enters, quill in ear, and, one by one,
As though I lived to write and wrote to live,
Unrolls his leases for my signature.”

He clanks his fetters to disturb my peace.
Yet who would wear them and become the slave
Of wealth and power, renouncing willingly
His freedom, and the hours that fly so fast,
A burden or a curse when misemployed,
But to the wise how precious—every day
A little life, a blank to be inscribed
With gentle deeds, such as in after-time
Console, rejoice, whene'er we turn the leaf
To read them? All, wherever in the scale,
Have, be they high or low, or rich or poor,
Inherit they a sheep-hook or a sceptre,
Much to be grateful for; but most has he,
Born in that middle sphere, that temperate zone,
Where Knowledge lights his lamp, there most secure,
And Wisdom comes, if ever, she who dwells
Above the clouds, above the firmament,
That Seraph sitting in the heaven of heavens.

What men most covet, wealth, distinction, power,
Are baubles nothing worth, that only serve
To rouse us up, as children in the schools
Are roused up to exertion. The reward
Is in the race we run, not in the prize;
And they, the few, that have it ere they earn it,
Having, by favour or inheritance,
These dangerous gifts placed in their idle hands,
And all that should await on worth well-tried,
All in the glorious days of old reserved
For manhood most mature or reverend age

338

Know not, nor ever can, the generous pride
That glows in him who on himself relies,
Entering the lists of life.

PÆSTUM.

March 4, 1815.

They stand between the mountains and the sea;
Awful memorials, but of whom we know not!
The seaman, passing, gazes from the deck.
The buffalo-driver, in his shaggy cloak,
Points to the work of magic and moves on.
Time was they stood along the crowded street,
Temples of Gods! and on their ample steps
What various habits, various tongues beset
The brazen gates for prayer and sacrifice!
Time was perhaps the third was sought for Justice;
And here the accuser stood, and there the accused;
And here the judges sate, and heard, and judged.
All silent now!—as in the ages past,
Trodden under foot and mingled, dust with dust.

How many centuries did the sun go round
From Mount Alburnus to the Tyrrhene sea,
While, by some spell rendered invisible,
Or, if approached, approached by him alone
Who saw as though he saw not, they remained
As in the darkness of a sepulchre,
Waiting the appointed time! All, all within

339

Proclaims that Nature had resumed her right,
And taken to herself what man renounced;
No cornice, triglyph, or worn abacus,
But with thick ivy hung or branching fern;
Their iron-brown o'erspread with brightest verdure!

From my youth upward have I longed to tread
This classic ground—And am I here at last?
Wandering at will through the long porticoes,
And catching, as through some majestic grove,
Now the blue ocean, and now, chaos-like,
Mountains and mountain-gulfs, and, half-way up,
Towns like the living rock from which they grew?
A cloudy region, black and desolate,
Where once a slave withstood a world in arms.

The air is sweet with violets, running wild
Mid broken friezes and fallen capitals;
Sweet as when Tully, writing down his thoughts,
Those thoughts so precious and so lately lost,
(Turning to thee, divine Philosophy,
Ever at hand to calm his troubled soul)
Sailed slowly by, two thousand years ago,
For Athens; when a ship, if north-east winds
Blew from the Pæstan gardens, slacked her course.

On as he moved along the level shore,
These temples, in their splendour eminent
Mid arcs and obelisks, and domes and towers,
Reflecting back the radiance of the west,
Well might he dream of Glory!—Now, coiled up,
The serpent sleeps within them; the she-wolf
Suckles her young: and, as alone I stand
In this, the nobler pile, the elements
Of earth and air its only floor and roof,

340

How solemn is the stillness! Nothing stirs
Save the shrill-voiced cicala flitting round
On the rough pediment to sit and sing;
Or the green lizard rustling through the grass,
And up the fluted shaft with short quick spring,
To vanish in the chinks that Time has made.

In such an hour as this, the sun's broad disk
Seen at his setting, and a flood of light
Filling the courts of these old sanctuaries,
(Gigantic shadows, broken and confused,
Athwart the innumerable columns flung)
In such an hour he came, who saw and told,
Led by the mighty Genius of the Place.

Walls of some capital city first appeared,
Half razed, half sunk, or scattered as in scorn;
—And what within them? what but in the midst
These Three in more than their original grandeur,
And, round about, no stone upon another?
As if the spoiler had fallen back in fear,
And, turning, left them to the elements.

'Tis said a stranger in the days of old
(Some say a Dorian, some a Sybarite;
But distant things are ever lost in clouds)
'Tis said a stranger came, and, with his plough,
Traced out the site; and Posidonia rose,
Severely great, Neptune the tutelar God;
A Homer's language murmuring in her streets,
And in her haven many a mast from Tyre.
Then came another, an unbidden guest.
He knocked and entered with a train in arms;
And all was changed, her very name and language!
The Tyrian merchant, shipping at his door
Ivory and gold, and silk, and frankincense,

341

Sailed as before, but, sailing, cried “For Pæstum!”
And now a Virgil, now an Ovid sung
Pæstum's twice-blowing roses; while, within,
Parents and children mourned—and, every year,
('Twas on the day of some old festival)
Met to give way to tears, and once again
Talk in the ancient tongue of things gone by.
At length an Arab climbed the battlements,
Slaying the sleepers in the dead of night;
And from all eyes the glorious vision fled!
Leaving a place lonely and dangerous,
Where whom the robber spares, a deadlier foe
Strikes at unseen—and at a time when joy
Opens the heart, when summer-skies are blue,
And the clear air is soft and delicate;
For then the demon works—then with that air
The thoughtless wretch drinks in a subtle poison
Lulling to sleep; and, when he sleeps, he dies.

But what are These still standing in the midst?
The Earth has rocked beneath; the Thunder-bolt
Passed thro' and thro', and left its traces there;
Yet still they stand as by some Unknown Charter!
Oh, they are Nature's own! and, as allied
To the vast Mountains and the eternal Sea,
They want no written history; theirs a voice
For ever speaking to the heart of Man!

AMALFI.

He who sets sail from Naples, when the wind
Blows fragrance from Posìlipo, may soon,
Crossing from side to side that beautiful lake,

342

Land underneath the cliff where, once among
The children gathering shells along the shore,
One laughed and played, unconscious of his fate;
His to drink deep of sorrow, and, through life,
To be the scorn of them that knew him not,
Trampling alike the giver and his gift,
The gift a pearl precious, inestimable,
A lay divine, a lay of love and war,
To charm, ennoble, and, from age to age,
Sweeten the labour when the oar was plied
Or on the Adrian or the Tuscan sea.

There would I linger—then go forth again,
And hover round that region unexplored,
Where to Salvator (when, as some relate,
By chance or choice he led a bandit's life,
Yet oft withdrew, alone and unobserved,
To wander through those awful solitudes)
Nature revealed herself. Unveiled she stood,
In all her wildness, all her majesty,
As in that elder time ere Man was made.

There would I linger—then go forth again;
And he who steers due east, doubling the cape,
Discovers, in a crevice of the rock,
The fishing-town, Amalfi. Haply there
A heaving bark, an anchor on the strand,
May tell him what it is; but what it was,
Cannot be told so soon.

The time has been,
When on the quays along the Syrian coast,
'Twas asked and eagerly, at break of dawn,
“What ships are from Amalfi?” when her coins,
Silver and gold, circled from clime to clime;
From Alexandria southward to Sennaar,

343

And eastward, through Damascus and Cabul
And Samarcand, to thy great wall, Cathay.

Then were the nations by her wisdom swayed;
And every crime on every sea was judged
According to her judgments. In her port
Prows, strange, uncouth, from Nile and Niger met,
People of various feature, various speech;
And in their countries many a house of prayer,
And many a shelter, where no shelter was,
And many a well, like Jacob's in the wild,
Rose at her bidding. Then in Palestine,
By the way-side, in sober grandeur stood
A Hospital, that, night and day, received
The pilgrims of the west; and, when 'twas asked,
“Who are the noble founders?” every tongue
At once replied, “The merchants of Amalfi.”
That Hospital, when Godfrey scaled the walls,
Sent forth its holy men in complete steel;
And hence, the cowl relinquished for the helm,
That chosen band, valiant, invincible,
So long renowned as champions of the Cross,
In Rhodes, in Malta.

For three hundred years
There, unapproached but from the deep, they dwelt;
Assailed for ever, yet from age to age
Acknowledging no master. From the deep
They gathered in their harvests; bringing home,
In the same ship, relics of ancient Greece,
That land of glory where their fathers lay,
Grain from the golden vales of Sicily,
And Indian spices. Through the civilized world
Their Credit was ennobled into Fame;
And, when at length they fell, they left mankind
A legacy, compared with which the wealth

344

Of Eastern kings—what is it in the scale?
The mariner's compass.

They are now forgot,
And with them all they did, all they endured,
Struggling with fortune. When Sicardi stood
On his high deck, his falchion in his hand,
And, with a shout like thunder, cried, “Come forth,
And serve me in Salerno!” forth they came,
Covering the sea, a mournful spectacle;
The women wailing, and the heavy oar
Falling unheard. Not thus did they return,
The tyrant slain; though then the grass of years
Grew in their streets.

There now to him who sails
Under the shore, a few white villages
Scattered above, below, some in the clouds,
Some on the margin of the dark blue sea
And glittering through their lemon-groves, announce
The region of Amalfi. Then, half-fallen,
A lonely watch-tower on the precipice,
Their ancient land-mark, comes. Long may it last;
And to the seaman in a distant age,
Though now he little thinks how large his debt,
Serve for their monument!

345

MONTE CASSINO.

What hangs behind that curtain?”—“Wouldst thou learn?
If thou art wise, thou wouldst not. 'Tis by some
Believed to be His master-work, who looked
Beyond the grave, and on the chapel-wall,
As tho' the day were come, were come and past,
Drew the Last Judgment. But the Wisest err.
He who in secret wrought, and gave it life,
For life is surely there and visible change,
Life, such as none could of himself impart,
(They who behold it, go not as they came,
But meditate for many and many a day)
Sleeps in the vault beneath. We know not much;
But what we know, we will communicate.
'Tis in an ancient record of the House;
And may it make thee tremble, lest thou fall!

Once—on a Christmas-eve—ere yet the roof
Rung with the hymn of the Nativity,
There came a stranger to the convent-gate,

346

And asked admittance; ever and anon,
As if he sought what most he feared to find,
Looking behind him. When within the walls,
These walls so sacred and inviolate,
Still did he look behind him; oft and long,
With curling, quivering lip and haggard eye,
Catching at vacancy. Between the fits,
For here, 'tis said, he lingered while he lived,
He would discourse and with a mastery,
A charm by none resisted, none explained,
Unfelt before; but when his cheek grew pale,
(Nor was the respite longer, if so long,
Than while a shepherd in the vale below
Counts, as he folds, five hundred of his flock)
All was forgotten. Then, howe'er employed,
He would break off and start as if he caught
A glimpse of something that would not be gone;
And turn and gaze and shrink into himself,
As though the Fiend were there and, face to face,
Scowled o'er his shoulder.

Most devout he was;
Most unremitting in the Services;
Then, only then, untroubled, unassailed;
And, to beguile a melancholy hour,
Would sometimes exercise that noble art
He learnt in Florence; with a master's hand,
As to this day the Sacristy attests,
Painting the wonders of the Apocalypse.

At length he sunk to rest and in his cell
Left, when he went, a work in secret done,
The portrait, for a portrait it must be,
That hangs behind the curtain. Whence he drew,
None here can doubt; for they that come to catch
The faintest glimpse—to catch it and be gone,
Gaze as he gazed, then shrink into themselves,
Acting the self-same part. But why 'twas drawn,
Whether, in penance, to atone for Guilt,

347

Or to record the anguish Guilt inflicts,
Or haply to familiarize his mind
With what he could not fly from, none can say,
For none could learn the burden of his soul.”

THE HARPER.

It was a Harper, wandering with his harp,
His only treasure; a majestic man,
By time and grief ennobled, not subdued;
Though from his height descending, day by day,
And, as his upward look at once betrayed,
Blind as old Homer. At a fount he sate,
Well-known to many a weary traveller;
His little guide, a boy not seven years old,
But grave, considerate beyond his years,
Sitting beside him. Each had ate his crust
In silence, drinking of the virgin-spring;
And now in silence, as their custom was,
The sun's decline awaited.

But the child
Was worn with travel. Heavy sleep weighed down
His eye-lids; and the grandsire, when we came,
Emboldened by his love and by his fear,
His fear lest night o'ertake them on the road,
Humbly besought me to convey them both
A little onward. Such small services
Who can refuse—Not I; and him who can,
Blest though he be with every earthly gift,
I cannot envy. He, if wealth be his,
Knows not its uses. So from noon till night,
Within a crazed and tattered vehicle,

348

That yet displayed, in rich emblazonry,
A shield as splendid as the Bardi wear,
We lumbered on together; the old man
Beguiling many a league of half its length,
When questioned the adventures of his life,
And all the dangers he had undergone;
His ship-wrecks on inhospitable coasts,
And his long warfare.—They were bound, he said,
To a great fair at Reggio; and the boy,
Believing all the world were to be there,
And I among the rest, let loose his tongue,
And promised me much pleasure. His short trance,
Short as it was, had, like a charmed cup,
Restored his spirit, and, as on we crawled,
Slow as the snail (my muleteer dismounting,
And now his mules addressing, now his pipe,
And now Luigi) he poured out his heart,
Largely repaying me. At length the sun
Departed, setting in a sea of gold;
And, as we gazed, he bade me rest assured
That like the setting would the rising be.

Their harp—it had a voice oracular,
And in the desert, in the crowded street,
Spoke when consulted. If the treble chord
Twanged shrill and clear, o'er hill and dale they went,
The grandsire, step by step, led by the child;
And not a rain-drop from a passing cloud
Fell on their garments. Thus it spoke to-day;
Inspiring joy, and, in the young one's mind,
Brightening a path already full of sunshine.

349

THE FELUCA.

Day glimmered; and beyond the precipice
(Which my mule followed as in love with fear,
Or as in scorn, yet more and more inclining
To tempt the danger where it menaced most)
A sea of vapour rolled. Methought we went
Along the utmost edge of this, our world,
And the next step had hurled us headlong down
Into the wild and infinite abyss;
But soon the surges fled, and we descried
Nor dimly, though the lark was silent yet,
Thy gulf, La Spezzia. Ere the morning-gun,
Ere the first day-streak, we alighted there;
And not a breath, a murmur! Every sail
Slept in the offing. Yet along the shore
Great was the stir; as at the noontide hour,
None unemployed. Where from its native rock
A streamlet, clear and full, ran to the sea,
The maidens knelt and sung as they were wont,
Washing their garments. Where it met the tide,
Sparkling and lost, an ancient pinnace lay
Keel upward, and the faggot blazed, the tar
Fumed from the cauldron; while, beyond the fort,
Whither I wandered, step by step led on,
The fishers dragged their net, the fish within
At every heave fluttering and full of life,
At every heave striking their silver fins
'Gainst the dark meshes.

350

Soon a boatman's shout
Re-echoed; and red bonnets on the beach,
Waving, recalled me. We embarked and left
That noble haven, where, when Genoa reigned,
A hundred galleys sheltered—in the day
When lofty spirits met and, deck to deck,
Doria, Pisani fought; that narrow field
Ample enough for glory. On we went
Ruffling with many an oar the crystalline sea,
On from the rising to the setting sun
In silence—underneath a mountain-ridge,
Untamed, untameable, reflecting round
The saddest purple; nothing to be seen
Of life or culture, save where, at the foot,
Some village and its church, a scanty line,
Athwart the wave gleamed faintly. Fear of Ill
Narrowed our course, fear of the hurricane,
And that still greater scourge, the crafty Moor,
Who, like a tiger prowling for his prey,
Springs and is gone, and on the adverse coast
(Where Tripoli and Tunis and Algiers
Forge fetters, and white turbans on the mole
Gather whene'er the Crescent comes displayed
Over the Cross) his human merchandize
To many a curious, many a cruel eye
Exposes. Ah, how oft, where now the sun
Slept on the shore, have ruthless scimitars
Flashed through the lattice, and a swarthy crew
Dragged forth, ere long to number them for sale,
Ere long to part them in their agony,
Parent and child! How oft, where now we rode
Over the billow, has a wretched son,
Or yet more wretched sire, grown grey in chains,
Laboured, his hands upon the oar, his eyes
Upon the land—the land, that gave him birth;

351

And, as he gazed, his homestall through his tears
Fondly imagined; when a Christian ship
Of war appearing in her bravery,
A voice in anger cried, “Use all your strength!”

But when, ah when, do they that can, forbear
To crush the unresisting? Strange, that men,
Creatures so frail, so soon, alas, to die,
Should have the power, the will to make this world
A dismal prison-house, and life itself,
Life in its prime, a burden and a curse
To him who never wronged them? Who that breathes
Would not, when first he heard it, turn away
As from a tale monstrous, incredible?
Surely a sense of our mortality,
A consciousness how soon we shall be gone,
Or, if we linger—but a few short years—
How sure to look upon our brother's grave,
Should of itself incline to pity and love,
And prompt us rather to assist, relieve,
Than aggravate the evils each is heir to.

At length the day departed, and the moon
Rose like another sun, illumining
Waters and woods and cloud-capt promontories,
Glades for a hermit's cell, a lady's bower,
Scenes of Elysium, such as Night alone
Reveals below, nor often—scenes that fled
As at the waving of a wizard's wand,
And left behind them, as their parting gift,
A thousand nameless odours. All was still;
And now the nightingale her song poured forth
In such a torrent of heart-felt delight,
So fast it flowed, her tongue so voluble,
As if she thought her hearers would be gone
Ere half was told. 'Twas where in the north-west,
Still unassailed and unassailable,
Thy pharos, Genoa, first displayed itself,

352

Burning in stillness on its craggy seat;
That guiding star so oft the only one,
When those now glowing in the azure vault
Are dark and silent. 'Twas where o'er the sea,
(For we were now within a cable's length,)
Delicious gardens hung; green galleries,
And marble terraces in many a flight,
And fairy-arches flung from cliff to cliff,
Wildering, enchanting; and, above them all,
A Palace, such as somewhere in the East,
In Zenastan or Araby the blest,
Among its golden groves and fruits of gold,
And fountains scattering rainbows in the sky,
Rose, when Aladdin rubbed the wondrous lamp;
Such, if not fairer; and, when we shot by,
A scene of revelry, in long array
As with the radiance of the setting sun,
The windows blazing. But we now approached
A City far-renowned; and wonder ceased.

GENOA.

This house was Andrea Doria's. Here he lived;
And here at eve relaxing, when ashore,
Held many a pleasant, many a grave discourse
With them that sought him, walking to and fro

353

As on his deck. 'Tis less in length and breadth
Than many a cabin in a ship of war;
But 'tis of marble and at once inspires
The reverence due to ancient dignity.

He left it for a better; and 'tis now
A house of trade, the meanest merchandise
Cumbering its floors. Yet, fallen as it is,
'Tis still the noblest dwelling—even in Genoa!
And hadst thou, Andrea, lived there to the last,
Thou hadst done well; for there is that without,
That in the wall, which monarchs could not give,
Nor thou take with thee, that which says aloud,
It was thy Country's gift to her Deliverer.

'Tis in the heart of Genoa (he who comes,
Must come on foot) and in a place of stir;
Men on their daily business, early and late,
Thronging thy very threshold. But, when there,
Thou wert among thy fellow-citizens,
Thy children, for they hailed thee as their sire;
And on a spot thou must have loved, for there,
Calling them round, thou gav'st them more than life,
Giving what, lost, makes life not worth the keeping.
There thou didst do indeed an act divine;
Nor couldst thou leave thy door or enter in,
Without a blessing on thee.

Thou art now
Again among them. Thy brave mariners
They who had fought so often by thy side,
Staining the mountain-billows, bore thee back;
And thou art sleeping in thy funeral-chamber.

Thine was a glorious course; but couldst thou there,
Clad in thy cere-cloth—in that silent vault,
Where thou art gathered to thy ancestors—

354

Open thy secret heart and tell us all,
Then should we hear thee with a sigh confess,
A sigh how heavy, that thy happiest hours
Were passed before these sacred walls were left,
Before the ocean-wave thy wealth reflected,
And pomp and power drew envy, stirring up
The ambitious man, that in a perilous hour
Fell from the plank.

357

A FAREWELL.

And now farewell to Italy—perhaps
For ever! Yet, methinks, I could not go,
I could not leave it, were it mine to say,
“Farewell for ever!” Many a courtesy,
That sought no recompense, and met with none
But in the swell of heart with which it came,
Have I experienced; not a cabin-door,
Go where I would, but opened with a smile;
From the first hour, when, in my long descent,
Strange perfumes rose, rose as to welcome me,
From flowers that ministered like unseen spirits;
From the first hour, when vintage-songs broke forth,
A grateful earnest, and the Southern lakes,
Dazzlingly bright, unfolded at my feet;
They that receive the cataracts, and ere long
Dismiss them, but how changed—onward to roll
From age to age in silent majesty,
Blessing the nations, and reflecting round
The gladness they inspire.

Gentle or rude,
No scene of life but has contributed
Much to remember—from the Polesine,
Where, when the south-wind blows and clouds on clouds
Gather and fall, the peasant freights his boat,
A sacred ark, slung in his orchard-grove;

358

Mindful to migrate when the king of floods
Visits his humble dwelling, and the keel,
Slowly uplifted over field and fence,
Floats on a world of waters—from that low,
That level region, where no Echo dwells,
Or, if she comes, comes in her saddest plight,
Hoarse, inarticulate—on to where the path
Is lost in rank luxuriance, and to breathe
Is to inhale distemper, if not death;
Where the wild-boar retreats, when hunters chafe,
And, when the day-star flames, the buffalo-herd,
Afflicted, plunge into the stagnant pool,
Nothing discerned amid the water-leaves,
Save here and there the likeness of a head,
Savage, uncouth; where none in human shape
Comes, save the herdsman, levelling his length
Of lance with many a cry, or, Tartar-like,
Urging his steed along the distant hill
As from a danger. There, but not to rest,
I travelled many a dreary league, nor turned
(Ah then least willing, as who had not been?)
When in the South, against the azure sky,
Three temples rose in soberest majesty,

359

The wondrous work of some heroic race.

But now a long farewell! Oft, while I live,
If once again in England, once again
In my own chimney-nook, as Night steals on,
With half-shut eyes reclining, oft, methinks,
While the wind blusters and the drenching rain
Clatters without, shall I recall to mind
The scenes, occurrences, I met with here
And wander in Elysium; many a note
Of wildest melody, magician-like
Awakening, such as the Calabrian horn
Along the mountain-side, when all is still,
Pours forth at folding-time; and many a chant,
Solemn, sublime, such as at midnight flows
From the full choir, when richest harmonies
Break the deep silence of thy glens, La Cava;
To him who lingers there with listening ear
Now lost and now descending as from Heaven!

And now a parting word is due from him
Who, in the classic fields of Italy,
(If haply thou hast borne with him so long,)
Through many a grove by many a fount has led thee,
By many a temple half as old as Time;
Where all was still awakening them that slept,
And conjuring up where all was desolate,

360

Where kings were mouldering in their funeral urns,
And oft and long the vulture flapped his wing—
Triumphs and masques.

Nature denied him much,
But gave him at his birth what most he values;
A passionate love for music, sculpture, painting,
For poetry, the language of the gods,
For all things here, or grand or beautiful,
A setting sun, a lake among the mountains,
The light of an ingenuous countenance,
And what transcends them all, a noble action.

Nature denied him much, but gave him more;
And ever, ever grateful should he be,
Though from his cheek, ere yet the down was there
Health fled; for in his heaviest hours would come
Gleams such as come not now; nor failed he then,
(Then and through life his happiest privilege)
Full oft to wander where the Muses haunt,
Smit with the love of song.

'Tis now long since;
And now, while yet 'tis day, would he withdraw,
Who, when in youth he strung his lyre, addressed
A former generation. Many an eye,
Bright as the brightest now, is closed in night,
And many a voice, how eloquent, is mute,
That, when he came, disdained not to receive
His lays with favour.

1839.