2 Relieved her wing till found; without thy light My paradise had still been incomplete. Since my tenth sun gave summer to my sight Thou wert my life, the essence of my thought, Loved ere I knew the name of love, and bright Still in these dim old eyes, now overwrought With the world's war, and years, and banishment, And tears for thee, by other woes untaught: For mine is not a nature to be bent By tyrannous faction, and the brawling crowd; Of me, can I return, though but to die, The world hath left me, what it found me-pure; Man wrongs, and Time avenges; and my name Though such was not my ambition's end or aim, And make men's fickle breath the wind that blows In bloody chronicles of ages past. I would have had my Florence great and free:5 As the bird My voice; but as the adder, deaf and fierce, Against the breast that cherish'd thee was stirr'd Thy venom, and state thou didst amerce, my And doom this body forfeit to the fire. And loves her, loves her even in her ire. The day may come when she will cease to err, The day may come she would be proud to have The dust she dooms to scatter, and transfer Me forth to breathe elsewhere, so reassume No, she denied me what was mine-my roof, And shall not have what is not hers-my tomb. Too long her armed wrath hath kept aloof The breast which would have bled for her, the heart That beat, the mind that was temptation-proof, The man who fought, toil'd, travell'd, and each part Of a true citizen fulfill'd, and saw For his reward the Guelf's ascendant art Pass his destruction even into a law. These things are not made for forgetfulness— Florence shall be forgotten first; too raw The wound, too deep the wrong, and the distress Of such endurance too prolong'd, to make My pardon greater, her injustice less, Though late repented: yet-yet for her sake I feel some fonder yearnings, and for thine, My own Beatrice, I would hardly take Vengeance upon the land which once was mine, And still is hallow'd by thy dust's return, Which would protect the murderess like a shrine, And save ten thousand foes by thy sole urn. Though, like old Marius from Minturnæ's marsh And Carthage' ruins, my lone breast may burn At times with evil feelings hot and harsh, And sometimes the last pangs of a vile foe Writhe in a dream before me, and o'er-arch My brow with hopes of triumph,-let them go! Such are the last infirmities of those Who long have suffer'd more than mortal woe, And yet, being mortal still, have no repose But on the pillow of Revenge-Revenge, Who sleeps to dream of blood, and waking glows With the oft-baffled, slakeless thirst of change, When we shall mount again, and they that trod Be trampled on, while Death and Até range O'er humbled heads and sever'd necks.-Great God! Take these thoughts from me-to thy hands I yield My many wrongs, and thine almighty rod Will fall on those who smote me,-be my shield! As thou hast been in peril, and in pain, In turbulent cities, and the tented field— In toil, and many troubles borne in vain For Florence. I appeal from her to Thee! And yet thou hast permitted this to me. Of their perturbed annals could attract An eye to gaze upon their civil rage, my Did not my verse embalm full many an act wail? Worthless as they who wrought it: 't is the doom In life, to wear their hearts out, and consume To feel me in the solitude of kings, Without the power that makes them bear a crown— Which waft him where the Apennine looks down Where yet my boys are, and that fatal she, 5 Their mother, the cold partner who hath brought CANTO II. THE spirit of the fervent days of old, When words were things that came to pass, and thought Flash'd o'er the future, bidding men behold Their children's children's doom already brought Forth from the abyss of time which is to be; The chaos of events, where lie half-wrought Shapes that must undergo mortality; What the great seers of Israel wore within, That spirit was on them, and is on me : And if, Cassandra-like, amidst the din Of conflict none will hear, or hearing heed, This voice from out the wilderness, the sin Be theirs, and my own feelings be my meed, The only guerdon I have ever known. Hast thou not bled? and hast thou still to bleed, Italia? Ah! to me such things, foreshown With dim sepulchral light, bid me forget In thine irreparable wrongs my own. We can have but one country, and even yet Thou 'rt mine-my bones shall be within thy breast, With our old Roman sway in the wide west; And make thee Europe's nightingale of song; Confess its barbarism when compared with thine. This shalt thou owe to him thou didst so wrong, Thy Tuscan bard, the banish'd Ghibelline. yet supine Woe! woe! the veil of coming centuries The storms yet sleep, the clouds still keep their station, The bloody chaos yet expects creation, But all things are disposing for thy doom; The elements await but for the word, "Let there be darkness!" and thou grow'st a tomb! Yes! thou, so beautiful, shalt feel the sword, Thou, Italy! so fair that paradise, Revived in thee, blooms forth to man restored : Ah! must the sons of Adam lose it twice? Thou! Italy! whose ever-golden fields, Plough'd by the sunbeams solely, would suffice For the world's granary; thou whose sky heaven gilds With brighter stars, and robes with deeper blue; Thou! in whose pleasant places summer builds Her palace, in whose cradle empire grew, And form'd the eternal city's ornaments From spoils of kings whom freemen overthrew ; Birth-place of heroes, sanctuary of saints, Where earthly first, then heavenly glory made In feeble colours, when the eye-from the Alp To see thy sunny fields, my Italy, Nearer and nearer yet, and dearer still The more approach'd, and dearest were they free. Thou-thou must wither to each tyrant's will: The Goth hath been,-the German, Frank, and Hun, By the old barbarians, there awaits the new, : |