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Iberian, Almain, Lombard, and the beast
And bird, wolf, vulture, more humane than they
Are; these but gorge the flesh and 'lap the gore
Of the departed, and then go their way;
But those, the human savages, explore

All paths of torture, and insatiate yet
With Ugolino hunger prowl for more.

Nine moons shall rise o'er scenes like this and set;
The chiefless army of the dead, which late
Beneath the traitor prince's banner met,
Hath left its leader's ashes at the gate;

Had but the royal rebel lived, perchance

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Thou hadst been spared, but his involved thy fate.
Oh! Rome, the spoiler of the spoil of France,
From Brennus to the Bourbon, never, never
Shall foreign standard to thy walls advance,

But Tiber shall become a mournful river.

Oh! when the strangers pass the Alps and Po,

Crush them, ye rocks! floods, whelm them, and for ever! Why sleep the idle avalanches so,

To topple on the lonely pilgrim's head?

Why doth Eridanus but overflow

The peasant's harvest from his turbid bed?

Were not each barbarous horde a nobler prey?

Over Cambyses' host the desert spread

Her sandy ocean, and the sea-waves' sway

Roll'd over Pharaoh and his thousands,-why,
Mountains and waters, do ye not as they?
And you, ye men! Romans, who dare not die,
Sons of the conquerors who overthrew

Those who o'erthrew proud Xerxes, where yet lie
The dead whose tomb oblivion never knew,
Are the Alps weaker than Thermopyla?
Their passes more alluring to the view
Of an invader? is it they, or ye

That to each host the mountain-gate unbar,
And leave the march in peace, the passage free?
Why, Nature's self detains the victor's car,
And makes your land impregnable, if earth
Could be so but alone she will not war,
Yet aids the warrior worthy of his birth,

In a soil where the mothers bring forth men!
Not so with those whose souls are little worth;
For them no fortress can avail, the den

Of the poor reptile which preserves its sting Is more secure than walls of adamant, when The hearts of those within are quivering. Are ye not brave? Yes, yet the Ausonian soil Hath hearts, and hands, and arms, and hosts to bring

Against oppression ; but how vain the toil,
While still division sows the seeds of woe
And weakness, till the stranger reaps the spoil.
Oh! my own beauteous land! so long laid low,
So long the grave of thy own children's hopes,
When there is but required a single blow
To break the chain, yet—yet the avenger stops,
And doubt and discord step 'twixt thine and thee,
And join their strength to that which with thee
What is there wanting then to set thee free,

And show thy beauty in its fullest light?
To make the Alps impassable; and we,
Her sons, may do this with one deed—Unite!

copes:

CANTO III.

FROM out the mass of never-dying ill,

The plague, the prince, the stranger, and the sword, Vials of wrath but emptied to refill

And flow again, I cannot all record

That crowds on my prophetic eye: the earth
And ocean written o'er would not afford

Space for the annal; yet it shall go forth;

Yes, all, though not by human pen, is graven,
There where the farthest suns and stars have birth.

Spread like a banner at the gate of heaven,
The bloody scroll of our millennial wrongs
Waves, and the echo of our groans is driven
Athwart the sound of archangelic songs,
And Italy, the martyr'd nation's gore,
Will not in vain arise to where belongs
Omnipotence and mercy evermore :

Like to a harp-string stricken by the wind,
The sound of her lament shall, rising o'er
The seraph voices, touch the Almighty Mind.
Meantime I, humblest of thy sons, and of
Earth's dust by immortality refined
To sense and suffering, though the vain may scoff,
And tyrants threat, and meeker victims bow
Before the storm because its breath is rough,
To thee, my country! whom before, as now,
I loved and love, devote the mournful lyre
And melancholy gift high powers allow
To read the future; and if now my

fire

Is not as once it shone o'er thee, forgive!
I but foretell thy fortunes-then expire;
Think not that I would look on them and live.
A spirit forces me to see and speak,

And for my guerdon grants not to survive ;
My heart shall be pour'd over thee and break :
Yet for a moment, ere I must resume

Thy sable web of sorrow, let me take, Over the gleams that flash athwart thy gloom,

A softer glimpse; some stars shine through thy night, And many meteors, and above thy tomb

Leans sculptured beauty, which death cannot blight;
And from thine ashes boundless spirits rise
To give thee honour and the earth delight;
Thy soil shall still be pregnant with the wise,

The gay, the learn'd, the generous, and the brave,
Native to thee as summer to thy skies,
Conquerors on foreign shores and the far wave, 7
Discoverers of new worlds, which take their name;
For thee alone they have no arm to save,
And all thy recompense is in their fame,
A noble one to them, but not to thee-

Shall they be glorious, and thou still the same?
Oh! more than these illustrious far shall be

The being and even yet he may be born-
The mortal saviour who shall set thee free,
And see thy diadem, so changed and worn
By fresh barbarians, on thy brow replaced;
And the sweet sun replenishing thy morn,
Thy moral morn, too long with clouds defaced
And noxious vapours from Avernus risen,
Such as all they must breathe who are debased
By servitude, and have the mind in prison.
Yet through this centuried eclipse of woe
Some voices shall be heard, and earth shall listen ;

Poets shall follow in the path I show,

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And make it broader; the same brilliant sky
Which cheers the birds to song shall bid them glow,
And raise their notes as natural and high;

Tuneful shall be their numbers: they shall sing
Many of love, and some of liberty;

But few shall soar upon that eagle's wing,
And look in the sun's face with eagle's gaze
All free and fearless as the feather'd king,

But fly more near the earth; how many a phrase
Sublime shall lavish'd be on some small prince,
In all the prodigality of praise!

And language, eloquently false, evince

The harlotry of genius, which, like beauty,

Too oft forgets its own self-reverence,
And looks on prostitution as a duty.
He who once enters in a tyrant's hall 9

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As guest is slave, his thoughts become a booty,
And the first day which sees the chain enthral
A captive sees his half of manhood gone—
The soul's emasculation saddens all
His spirit: thus the bard too near the throne,
Quails from his inspiration, bound to please,—
How servile is the task to please alone!

To smooth the verse to suit his sovereign's ease
And royal leisure, nor too much prolong
Aught save his eulogy, and find, and seize,
Or force or forge fit argument of song!

Thus trammell'd, thus condemn'd to flattery's trebles,
He toils through all, still trembling to be wrong:
For fear some noble thoughts, like heavenly rebels,
Should rise up in high treason to his brain,

He sings, as the Athenian spoke, with pebbles In 's mouth, lest truth should stammer through his strain. But out of the long file of sonnetteers

There shall be some who will not sing in vain, And he, their prince, shall rank among my peers, And love shall be his torment; but his grief Shall make an immortality of tears,

And Italy shall hail him as the chief

Of poet lovers, and his higher song

Of freedom wreathe him with as green a leaf. But in a further age shall rise along

The banks of Po two greater still than he,.

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The world which smiled on him shall do them wrong

Till they are ashes and repose with me.

The first will make an epoch with his lyre,
And fill the earth with feats of chivalry :

His fancy like a rainbow, and his fire

Like that of heaven, immortal, and his thought Borne onward with a wing that cannot tire: Pleasure shall, like a butterfly new caught, Flutter her lovely pinions o'er his theme, And art itself seem into nature wrought By the transparency of his bright dream.— The second, of a tenderer, sadder mood, Shall pour his soul out o'er Jerusalem: He, too, shall sing of arms, and christian blood Shed where Christ bled for man; and his high harp

Shall, by the willow over Jordan's flood,

Revive a song of Sion, and the sharp

Conflict, and final triumph of the brave
And pious, and the strife of hell to warp

Their hearts from their great purpose, until wave
The red-cross banners where the first red cross
Was crimson'd from his veins who died to save,
Shall be his sacred argument; the loss

Of years, of favour, freedom, even of fame
Contested for a time, while the smooth gloss
Of courts would slide o'er his forgotten name,
And call captivity a kindness, meant

To shield him from insanity or shame ;
Such shall be his meet guerdon! who was sent
To be Christ's laureate they reward him well!
Florence dooms me but death or banishment,
Ferrara him a pittance and a cell,

Harder to bear and less deserved, for I

Had stung the factions which I strove to quell;

But this meek man, who with a lover's eye

Will look on earth and heaven, and who will deign
To embalm with his celestial flattery

As poor a thing as e'er was spawn'd to reign,
What will he do to merit such a doom?
Perhaps he 'll love,—and is not love in vain
Torture enough without a living tomb?
Yet it will be so he and his compeer,
The Bard of chivalry, will both consume
In penury and pain too many a year,
And, dying in despondency, bequeath

To the kind world, which scarce will yield a tear,
A heritage enriching all who breathe

With the wealth of a genuine poet's soul,
And to their country a redoubled wreath,
Unmatch'd by time; not Hellas can unroll

Through her olympiads two such names, though one
Of hers be mighty.—And is this the whole

Of such men's destiny beneath the sun?

Must all the finer thoughts, the thrilling sense, The electric blood with which their arteries run, Their body's self-tuned soul with the intense Feeling of that which is, and fancy of

That which should be, to such a recompense Conduct? shall their bright plumage on the rough Storm be still scatter'd? Yes, and it must be. For, form'd of far too penetrable stuff,

These birds of paradise but long to flee

Back to their native mansion; soon they find
Earth's mist with their pure pinions not agree,

And die, or are degraded, for the mind
Succumbs to long infection, and despair,
And vulture passions, flying close behind,

Await the moment to assail and tear;

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