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 315 The wreath which Dante's brow alone had worn before.

320

325

330

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,

Scarce fit to be the slave of him thou madest to

mourn:

335

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,
Which emanated then, and dazzles now,

340

345

350

855

In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire,

And Boileau, whose rash envy could allow
No strain which shamed his country's creaking
lyre,

That whetstone of the teeth-monotony in wire!

XXXIX.

Peace to Torquato's injured shade! 't was his
In life and death to be the mark where Wrong
Aim'd with her poison'd arrows, but to miss.
Oh, victor unsurpass'd in modern song!

Each year brings forth its millions; but how long
The tide of generations shall roll on,

And not the whole combined and countless throng Compose a mind like thine? Though all in one Condensed their scatter'd rays, they would not form

a sun.

XL.

Great as thou art, yet parallel'd by those,
Thy countrymen, before thee born to shine,
The Bards of Hell and Chivalry first rose
The Tuscan father's comedy divine;

Then, not unequal to the Florentine

The southern Scott, the minstrel who call'd forth
A new creation with his magic line,

And, like the Ariosto of the North,

360 Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightly worth.

XLI.

The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust
The iron crown of laurel's mimic'd leaves;
Nor was the ominous element unjust,

For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves

365

Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves,

And the false semblance but disgraced his brow;
Yet still, if fondly Superstition grieves,

Know, that the lightning sanctifies below Whate'er it strikes; -yon head is doubly sacred

now.

XLII.

370 Italia! oh, Italia! thou who hast

875

380

385

390

The fatal gift of beauty, which became A funeral dower of present woes and past, On thy sweet brow is sorrow plough'd by shame, And annals graved in characters of flame. Oh, God! that thou wert in thy nakedness Less lovely or more powerful, and couldst claim Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press To shed thy blood and drink the tears of thy distress;

XLIII.

Then mightst thou more appal; or, less desired,
Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored

For thy destructive charms; then, still untired,
Would not be seen the armed torrents pour'd
Down the deep Alps; nor would the hostile horde
Of many-nation'd spoilers from the Po

Quaff blood and water; nor the stranger's sword
Be thy sad weapon of defence, and so,

Victor or vanquished, thou the slave of friend or foe.

XLIV.

Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him,
The Roman friend of Rome's least-mortal mind,
The friend of Tully. As my bark did skim
The bright blue waters with a fanning wind,
Came Megara before me, and behind

395

400

Ægina lay, Piræus on the right,
And Corinth on the left; I lay reclined
Along the prow, and saw all these unite

In ruin, even as he had seen the desolate sight;

XLV.

For Time hath not rebuilt them, but uprear'd
Barbaric dwellings on their shatter'd site,
Which only make more mourn'd and more en-
dear'd

The few last rays of their far-scatter'd light
And the crush'd relics of their vanish'd might.
The Roman saw these tombs in his own age,
These sepulchres of cities which excite

Sad wonder, and his yet surviving page 405 The moral lesson bears, drawn from such pilgrimage.

410

415

XLVI.

That page is now before me, and on mine
His country's ruin added to the mass

Of perish'd states he mourn'd in their decline,
And I in desolation. All that was

Of then destruction is; and now, alas!

Rome Rome imperial, bows her to the storm,
In the same dust and blackness, and we pass
The skeleton of her Titanic form,

Wrecks of another world whose ashes still are warm.

XLVII.

Yet, Italy! through every other land

Thy wrongs should ring, and shall, from side to

side;

Mother of Arts, as once of arms; thy hand

Was then our guardian, and is still our guide;

Parent of our Religion, whom the wide

420 Nations have knelt to for the keys of heaven! Europe, repentant of her parricide,

425

430

435

440

445

Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven, Roll the barbarian tide, and sue to be forgiven.

XLVIII.

But Arno wins us to the fair white walls,
Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps
A softer feeling for her fairy halls.

Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps

Her corn and wine and oil, and Plenty leaps
To laughing life with her redundant horn.
Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps.
Was modern Luxury of Commerce born,

And buried Learning rose, redeem'd to a new morn.

XLIX.

There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills
The air around with beauty. We inhale
The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils
Part of its immortality; the veil

Of heaven is half undrawn ; within the pale
We stand, and in that form and face behold
What mind can make when Nature's self would

fail;

And to the fond idolaters of old

Envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould.

L.

We gaze and turn away, and know not where,
Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart
Reels with its fulness; there - for ever there
Chain'd to the chariot of triumphal Art,