Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

not extraordinary that I should recur to one still older and better, to one who has beheld the birth and death of the other, and to whom I am far more indebted for the social advantages of an enlightened friendship, than-though not ungrateful—I can, or could be, to Childe Harold, for any public favour reflected through the poem on the poet,-to one, whom I have known long, and accompanied far, whom I have found wakeful over my sickness and kind in my sorrow, glad in my prosperity and firm in my adversity, true in counsel and trusty in peril, to a friend often tried and never found wanting;-to yourself.

In so doing, I recur from fiction to truth; and in dedicating to you in its complete, or at least concluded state, a poetical work which is the longest, the most thoughtful and comprehensive, of my compositions, I wish to do honour to myself by the record of many years' intimacy with a man of learning, of talent, of steadiness, and of honour. It is not for minds like ours to give or to receive flattery; yet the praises of sincerity have ever been permitted to the voice of friendship; and it is not for you, nor even for others, but to relieve a heart which has not elsewhere, or lately, been so much accustomed to the encounter of good-will as to withstand the shock firmly, that I thus attempt to commemorate your good qualities, or rather the advantages which I have derived from their exertion. Even the recurrence of the date of this letter, the anniversary of the most unfortunate day of my past existence, but which cannot poison my future, while I retain the resource of your friendship and of my own faculties, will henceforth have a more agreeable recollection for both, inasmuch as it will remind us of this my attempt to thank you for an indefatigable regard, such as few men have experienced, and no one could experience without thinking better of his species and of himself.

It has been our fortune to traverse together, at various periods, the countries of chivalry, history, and fable-Spain, Greece, Asia Minor, and Italy; and what Athens and Constantinople were to us a few years ago, Venice and Rome have been more recently. The poem also, or the pilgrim, or both, have accompanied me from first to last; and perhaps it may be a pardonable vauity which induces me to reflect with complacency on a composition which in some degree connects me with the spot where it was produced, and the objects it would fain describe; and however unworthy it may be deemed of those magical and memorable abodes, however short it may fall of our distant conceptions and immediate impressions, yet as a mark of respect for what is venerable, and of feeling for what is glorious, it has been to me a source of pleasure in the production, and I part with it with a kind of regret, which I hardly suspected that events could have left me for imaginary objects.

With regard to the conduct of the last canto, there will be found less of the pilgrim than in any of the preceding, and that little slightly, if at all, separated from the author speaking in his own person. The fact is, that I had become weary of drawing a line which every one seemed determined not to perceive: like the Chinese in Goldsmith's Citizen of the World, whom nobody would believe to be a Chinese, it was in vain that I asserted, and imagined, that I had drawn a distinction between the author and the pilgrim; and the very anxiety to preserve this difference, and disappointment at finding it unavailing, so far crushed

my efforts in the composition, that I determined to abandon it altogether—and have done so. The opinions which have been, or may be, formed on that subject, are now a matter of indifference; the work is to depend on itself, and not on the writer; and the author who has no resources in his own mind beyond the reputation, transient or permanent, which is to arise from his literary efforts, deserves the fate of authors.

In the course of the following canto it was my intention, either in the text or in the notes, to have touched upon the present state of Italian literature, and perhaps of manners. But the text, within the limits I proposed, I soon found hardly sufficient for the labyrinth of external objects, and the consequent reflections; and for the whole of the notes, excepting a few of the shortest, I am indebted to yourself, and these were necessarily limited to the elucidation of the text.

The

It is also a delicate and no very grateful task, to dissert upon the literature and manners of a nation so dissimilar; and requires an attention and impartiality which would induce us-though perhaps no inattentive observers, nor ignorant of the language or customs of the people amongst whom we have recently abode to distrust, or at least defer, our judgment, and more narrowly examine our information. state of literary as well as political party appears to run, or to have run, so high, that for a stranger to steer impartially between them is next to impossible. It may be enough, then, at least for my purpose, to quote from their own beautiful language-"Mi pare che in un paese tutto poetico, che vanta la lingua la più nobile ed insieme la più dolce, tutte tutte la vie diverse si possono tentare, e che sinchè la patria di Alfieri e di Monti non ha perduto l'antico valore, in tutte essa dovrebbe essere la prima." Italy has great names still-Canova, Monti, Ugo Foscolo, Pindemonte, Visconti, Morelli, Cicognara, Albrizzi, Mezzophanti, Mai, Mustoxidi, Aglietti, and Vacca, will secure to the present generation an honourable place in most of the departments of art, science, and belles lettres; and in some the very highest:-Europe-the world-has but one Canova.

It has been somewhere said by Alfieri, that "La pianta uomo nasce più robusta in Italia che in qualunque altra terra-e che gli stessi atroci delitti che vi si commettono ne sono una prova." Without subscribing to the latter part of his proposition, a dangerous doctrine, the truth of which may be disputed on better grounds, namely, that the Italians are in no respect more ferocious than their neighbours, that manmust be wilfully blind, or ignorantly heedless, who is not struck with the extraordinary capacity of this people, or, if such a word be admissible, their capabilities, the facility of their acquisitions, the rapidity of their conceptions, the fire of their genius, their sense of beauty, and, amidst all the disadvantages of repeated revolutions, the desolation of battles, and the despair of ages, their still unquenched “longing after immortality," the immortality of independence. And when we ourselves, in riding round the walls of Rome, heard the simple lament of the labourers' chorus, "Roma! Roma! Roma! Roma non è più come era prima," it was difficult not to contrast this melancholy dirge with the bacchanal roar of the songs of exultation still yelled from the London taverns, over the carnage of Mont St. Jean, and the betrayal of Genoa,

of Italy, of France, and of the world, by men whose conduct you yourself have exposed in a work worthy of the better days of our history. For me,―

"Non movero mai corda

Ove la turba di sue ciance assorda."

What Italy has gained by the late transfer of nations, it were useless for Englishmen to inquire, till it becomes ascertained that England has acquired something more than a permanent army and a suspended Habeas Corpus; it is enough for them to look at home. For what they have done abroad, and especially in the South, "verily they will have their reward, and at no very distant period.

| Wishing you, my dear Hobhouse, a safe and agreeable return to that country whose real welfare can be dearer to none than to yourself, I dedicate to you this poem in its completed state; and repeat once more how truly I am ever

Your obliged and affectionate friend,

VENICA, January 2, 1818.

I.

BYRON.

I STOOD in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; (1)
A palace and a prison on each hand:

I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying glory smiles

O'er the far times, when many a subject land
Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred
isles!

II.

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, (2) Rising with her tiara of proud towers At airy distance, with majestic motion, A ruler of the waters and their powers: And such she was;-her daughters had their dowers From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East Pour'd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers. In purple was she robed, and of her feast Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity increased.

III.

In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, (3) And silent rows the songless gondolier; Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, And music meets not always now the ear: Those days are gone-but Beauty still is here. States fall, arts fade-but Nature doth not die, Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear, The pleasant place of all festivity, The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!

(1) See Historical Notes, at the end of this Canto, No. I. -LE

1) An old writer, describing the appearance of Venice, tas made use of the above image, which would not be poettal were it not true:-"Quo fit ut qui superne urbem conkmpletur, turritam telluris imaginem medio oceano figura. am se patet inspicere." *

Merci Antonii Sabelli, de Veneta Urbis Situ, Narratio, edit. Tauria 187; lib. i. fol. 202.

IV.

But unto us she hath a spell beyond Her name in story, and her long array Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond Above the dogeless city's vanish'd sway; Ours is a trophy which will not decay With the Rialto; (4) Shylock and the Moor, And Pierre, can not be swept or worn away-The keystones of the arch! though all were o'er, For us repeopled were the solitary shore.

V.

The beings of the mind are not of clay;
Essentially immortal, they create
And multiply in us a brighter ray

And more beloved existence: that which Fate
Prohibits to dull life, in this our state

Of mortal bondage, by these spirits supplied
First exiles, then replaces what we hate;
Watering the heart whose early flowers have died,
And with a fresher growth replenishing the void.
VI.

Such is the refuge of our youth and age, The first from hope, the last from vacancy; And this worn feeling peoples many a page, And, may be, that which grows beneath mine eye : Yet there are things whose strong reality Outshines our fairy-land; in shape and hues More beautiful than our fantastic sky, And the strange constellations which the Muse O'er her wild universe is skilful to diffuse:

VII.

I saw or dream'd of such,--but let them go,They came like truth, and disappear'd like dreams; And whatsoe'er they were-are now but so: I could replace them if I would; still teems My mind with many a form which aptly seems Such as I sought for, and at moments found; Let these too go-for waking Reason deems Such over-weening fantasies unsound, And other voices speak, and other sights surround.

VIII.

I've taught me other tongues-and in strange eyes Have made me not a stranger; to the mind Which is itself, no changes bring surprise; Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find, A country with-ay, or without mankind; Yet was I born where men are proud to be, Not without cause; and should I leave behind The inviolate island of the sage and free, And seek me out a home by a remoter sea?

IX.

Perhaps I loved it well; and should I lay
My ashes in a soil which is not mine,
My spirit shall resume it-if we may
Unbodied choose a sanctuary. I twine

(3) See Historical Notes, at the end of this Canto, No. II. -L. E.

(4) "The Rialto was called the Ripa Alta, or Riva Alta. The arch of this bridge, the largest in span in the city, connects the Rialto with other parts of Venice. On the island is the Exchange, where the merchants of this most celebrated commercial city met foreigners of every nation in correspond. ence with Venice, but principally Italians from other states of Italy, French, English, Spaniards, and Turks. The present bridge of the Rialto was commenced in 1588, and completed in three years." Finden's Illustrations.-P. E.

My hopes of being remember'd in my line With my land's language: if too fond and far These aspirations in their scope incline,If my fame should be, as my fortunes are, Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar.

X.

My name from out the temple where the dead Are honour'd by the nations-let it beAnd light the laurels on a loftier head! And be the Spartan's epitaph on me→→→ "Sparta hath many a worthier son than he." (1) Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need; The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree I planted, they have torn me, and I bleed : I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.

XI.

The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord;
And, annual marriage now no more renew'd,
The Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored,
Neglected garment of her widowhood!

St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood, (2)
Stand, but in mockery of his wither'd power,
Over the proud Place where an emperor sued,
And monarchs gazed and envied, in the hour
When Venice was a queen with an unequall'd dower.

XII.

The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns-(3) An emperor tramples where an emperor knelt; Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains Clank over sceptred cities; nations melt From power's high pinnacle, when they have felt The sunshine for a while, and downward go Like lauwine loosen'd from the mountain's belt: Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo ! (4) The octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe. XIII.

Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass, Their gilded collars glittering in the sun; But is not Doria's menace come to pass? (5) Are they not bridled?-Venice, lost and won, Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done, Sinks, like a sea-weed, into whence she rose! Better be whelm'd beneath the waves, and shun, Even in destruction's depth, her foreign foes, From whom submission wrings an infamous repose. XIV.

In youth she was all glory,-a new Tyre,— Her very by-word sprung from victory, The "Planter of the Lion," (6) which through fire And blood she bore o'er subject earth and sea; Though making many slaves, herself still free, And Europe's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite; Witness Troy's rival, Candia! Vouch it, ye Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's fight! For ye are names no time nor tyranny can blight.

(1) The answer of the mother of Brasidas, the Lacedæ. monian general, to the strangers who praised the memory of her son.

(2, 3, 4, 5) See Historical Notes, at the end of this Canto, Nos. III. IV. V. VL-L. E.

(6) That is, the Lion of St. Mark, the standard of the republic, which is the origin of the word Pantaloon-Piantaleone, Pantaleon, Pantaloon.

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

I loved her from my boyhood-she to me
Was as a fairy city of the heart,
Rising like water-columns from the sea,
Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart;
And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakspeare's art, (9)
Had stamp'd her image in me, and even so,
Although I found her thus, we did not part,
Perchance even dearer in her day of woe,
Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show.
XIX.

I can repeople with the past-and of
The present there is still for eye and thought,
And meditation chasten'd down, enough;
And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought;
And of the happiest moments which were wrought
Within the web of my existence, some

From thee, fair Venice! have their colours caught:
There are some feelings Time cannot benumb,
Nor Torture shake, or mine would now be cold and

dumb.

XX.

But from their nature will the tannen grow (10)
Loftiest on loftiest and least shelter'd rocks,
Rooted in barrenness, where nought below
Of soil supports them 'gainst the Alpine shocks

(7) See Historical Notes, at the end of this Canto, No. VII.-L. E.

(8) The story is told in Plutarch's Life of Nicias. (9) Venice Preserved; Mysteries of Udolpho; the Ghost. Seer, or Armenian; the Merchant of Venice; Othello. (10) Tannen is the plural of tanne, a species of fir peculiar to the Alps, which only thrives in very rocky parts, where scarcely soil sufficient for its nourishment can be found. On

[ocr errors]

Of eddying storms; yet springs the trunk, and mocks The howling tempest, till its height and frame Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks Of bleak grey granite into life it came, And grew a giant tree;-the mind may grow the same.

XXI.

Existence may be borne, and the deep root
Of life and sufferance make its firm abode
In bare and desolated bosoms: mute
The camel labours with the heaviest load,
And the wolf dies in silence,-not bestow'd
In vain should such example be; if they,
Things of ignoble or of savage mood,
Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay
May temper it to bear, it is but for a day.
XXII.

All suffering doth destroy, or is destroy'd,
Even by the sufferer; and, in each event,
Ends: Some, with hope replenish'd aud rebuoy'd,
Return to whence they came-with like intent,
And weave their web again; some, bow'd and bent,
Wax grey and ghastly, withering ere their time,
And perish with the reed on which they leant;
Some seek devotion, toil, war, good or crime,
According as their souls were form'd to sink or climb.
XXIII.

But ever and anon of griefs subdued
There comes a token like a scorpion's sting,
Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued;
And slight withal may be the things which bring
Back on the heart the weight which it would fling
Aside for ever: it may be a sound-

A tone of music-summer's eve-or spring

A flower-the wind-the ocean-which shall wound, Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound;

XXIV.

And how and why we know not, nor can trace Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind, But feel the shock renew'd, nor can efface The blight and blackening which it leaves behind, Which out of things familiar, undesign'd, When least we deem of such, calls up to view The spectres whom no exorcism can bind, The cold, the changed, perchance the dead, anew, The mourn'd, the loved, the lost-too many!-yet how few!

XXV.

Bat my soul wanders; I demand it back
To meditate amongst decay, and stand
A rain amidst ruins; there to track
Fall'n states and buried greatness, o'er a land

these spots it grows to a greater height than any other mountain-tree.

(1)The whole of this canto is rich in description of Nature. The love of Nature now appears as a distinct passion in Byron's mind. It is a love that does not rest in bebalding, nor is satisfied with describing, what is before him. It has a power and being, blending itself with the poet's very life. Though Byron had, with his real eyes, perhaps, seen more of Nature than ever was before permitted to any great poet, yet he never before seemed to open his whole heart to her genial impulses. But in this

Which was the mightiest in its old command, And is the loveliest, and must ever be The master-mould of Nature's heavenly hand, Wherein were cast the heroic and the free, The beautiful, the brave-the lords of earth and sea,

XXVI.

The commonwealth of kings, the men of Rome! And even since, and now, fair Italy! Thou art the garden of the world, the home Of all Art yields, and Nature (1) can decree; Even in thy desert, what is like to thee? Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste More rich than other climes' fertility; Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced.

XXVII.

The moon is up, and yet it is not nightSunset divides the sky with her-a sea Of glory streams along the Alpine height Of blue Friuli's mountains; Heaven is free From clouds, but of all colours seems to be Melted to one vast Iris of the West, Where the Day joins the past Eternity; While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest Floats through the azure air-an island of the blest! (2)

XXVIII.

A single star is at her side, and reigns With her o'er half the lovely heaven; but still Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains Roll'd o'er the peak of the far Rhætian hill, As Day and Night contending were, until Nature reclaim'd her order :-gently flows The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil The odorous purple of a new-born rose, [glows, Which streams upon her stream, and glass'd within it

XXIX.

Fill'd with the face of heaven, which, from afar,
Comes down upon the waters; all its hues,
From the rich sunset to the rising star,
Their magical variety diffuse:

And now they change; a paler shadow strews
Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting day
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues
With a new colour as it gasps away,

The last still loveliest, till-'t is gone-and all is grey.

XXX.

There is a tomb in Arqua;-rear'd in air,
Pillar'd in their sarcophagus, repose
The bones of Laura's lover: here repair
Many familiar with his well-sung woes,

he is changed; and in the third and fourth Cantos of Chille Harold, he will stand a comparison with the best descriptive poets, in this age of descriptive poetry." Professor Wilson.-L. E.

(2) The above description may seem fantastical or exaggerated to those who have never seen an Oriental or an Italian sky, yet it is but a literal and hardly sufficient delineation of an August evening (the eighteenth), as contemplated in one of many rides along the banks of the Brenta, near La Mira.

The pilgrims of his genius. He arose To raise a language, and his land reclaim From the dull yoke of her barbaric foes: Watering the tree which bears his lady's name (1) With his melodious tears, he gave himself to fame.

XXXI.

They keep his dust in Arqua, where he died; (2) The mountain-village where his latter days Went down the vale of years; and 't is their prideAn honest pride-and let it be their praise, To offer to the passing stranger's gaze His mansion and his sepulchre; both plain And venerably simple, such as raise A feeling more accordant with his strain Than if a pyramid form'd his monumental fane.

XXXII.

And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt (3)
Is one of that complexion which seems made
For those who their mortality have felt,
And sought a refuge from their hopes decay'd
In the deep umbrage of a green hill's shade,
Which shows a distant prospect far away
Of busy cities, now in vain display'd,

For they can lure no further; and the ray
Of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday.

XXXIII.

Developing the mountains, leaves, and flowers, And shining in the brawling brook, where-by, Clear as its current, glide the sauntering hours With a calm languor, which, though to the eye Idlesse it seem, hath its morality.

If from society we learn to live,

"T is solitude should teach us how to die;

It hath no flatterers; vanity can give

And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay, Deeming themselves predestined to a doom Which is not of the pangs that pass away; Making the sun like blood, the earth a tomb, The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom.

XXXV.

Ferrara! (5) in thy wide and grass-grown streets, Whose symmetry was not for solitude, There seems as 't were a curse upon the seats Of former sovereigns, and the antique brood Of Este, which for many an age made good Its strength within thy walls, and was of yore Patron or tyrant, as the changing mood Of petty power impell'd, of those who wore The wreath which Dante's brow alone had worn before.

XXXVI.

And Tasso is their glory and their shame : Hark to his strain! and then survey his cell! And see how dearly earn'd Torquato's fame, And where Alfonso bade his poet dwell! The miserable despot could not quell The insulted mind he sought to quench, and blend With the surrounding maniacs, in the hell. Where he had plunged it. Glory without end Scatter'd the clouds away-and on that name attend

XXXVII.

The tears and praises of all time; while thine
Would rot in its oblivion-in the sink
Of worthless dust, which from thy boasted line
Is shaken into nothing; but the link

Thou formest in his fortunes bids us think
Of thy poor malice, naming thee with scorn-
Alfonso! how thy ducal pageants shrink
From thee! if in another station born,

No hollow aid; alone-man with his God must strive: Scarce fit to be the slave of him thou madest to mourn :

[blocks in formation]

"I have built, among the Euganean hills, a small house, decent and proper; in which I hope to pass the rest of my days, thinking always of my dead or absent friends." Among those still living was Boccaccio, who is thus mentioned by him in his will:-"To Don Giovanni of Certaldo, for a winter gown at his evening studies, I leave fifty golden florins; truly, little enough for so great a man." When the Venetians overran the country, Petrarch prepared for flight. "Write your name over your door," said one of his friends, and you will be safe." "I am not sure of that," replied Petrarch, and fled with his books to Padua. His books he left to the republic of Venice, laying, as it were, a foundation for the library of St. Mark; but they exist no longer. His legacy to Francis Carrara, a Madonna painted by Giotto, is still preserved in the Cathedral of Padua." Rogers.-L. E.

(4) The struggle is to the full as likely to be with demons as with our better thoughts. Satan chose the wilderness for the temptation of our Saviour. And our unsullied John Locke preferred the presence of a child to complete solitude. (5) In April, 1817, Lord Byron visited Ferrara, and went over the castle, cell, etc., and wrote, a few days after, the

XXXVIII.

Thou! form'd to eat, and be despised, and die, Even as the beasts that perish, save that thou Hadst a more splendid trough and wider sty: He! with a glory round his furrow'd brow,

Lament of Tasso.-"One of the Ferrarese asked me," he says, in a letter to a friend, "if I knew Lord Byron,' an acquaintance of his, now at Naples. I told him "No!' which was true both ways, for I knew not the impostor; and, in the other, no one knows himself. He stared, when told that I was the real Simon Pure! Another asked me, if I had not translated Tasso. You see what fame is! how accurate! how boundless! I don't know how others feel, but I am always the lighter and the better looked on when I have got rid of mine. It sits on me like armour on the Lord Mayor's champion; and I got rid of all the husk of literature, and the attendant babble, by answering that I had not translated Tasso, but a namesake had; and, by the blessing of Heaven, I looked so little like a poet, that every body believed me." B. Letters.-L. E.

Ferrara is supposed to occupy the site of Forum Alliesi, which, contracted to Forum Arrii, would easily pass into its present name. The modern city dates its foundation from the fifth century. Hazlitt, in his Notes of a Journey through France and Italy, calls Ferrara "the ideal of an Italian city, once great, now a shadow of itself; a classic vestige of antiquity drooping into peaceful decay-a sylvan

suburb

"Where buttress, wall, and tower
Seem fading fast away

From human thoughts and purposes,
To yield to some transforming power,

And blend with the surrounding trees.'"-P. E.

« FöregåendeFortsätt »