Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

by Lord Byron

Canto the Fourth

I.

   I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
   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
   Looked 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,
   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
   Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
   In purple was she robed, and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.
III.

   In Venice, Tasso's echoes are no more,
   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!
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 vanished sway;
   Ours is a trophy which will not decay
   With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor,
   And Pierre, cannot 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 dreamed of such,—but let them go—
   They came like truth, and disappeared 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 overweening phantasies 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
   My hopes of being remembered 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 honoured by the nations—let it be—
   And light the laurels on a loftier head!
   And be the Spartan's epitaph on me—
   'Sparta hath many a worthier son than he.'
   Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need;
   The thorns which I have reaped 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 renewed,
   The Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored,
   Neglected garment of her widowhood!
   St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood
   Stand, but in mockery of his withered power,
   Over the proud place where an Emperor sued,
   And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour
When Venice was a queen with an unequalled dower.
XII.

   The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns—
   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 loosened from the mountain's belt:
   Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo!
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?
   Are they not BRIDLED?—Venice, lost and won,
   Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done,
   Sinks, like a seaweed, into whence she rose!
   Better be whelmed 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 byword sprung from victory,
   The 'Planter of the Lion,' 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.
XV.

   Statues of glass—all shivered—the long file
   Of her dead doges are declined to dust;
   But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile
   Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust;
   Their sceptre broken, and their sword in rust,
   Have yielded to the stranger:  empty halls,
   Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must
   Too oft remind her who and what enthrals,
Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls.
XVI.

   When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse,
   And fettered thousands bore the yoke of war,
   Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse,
   Her voice their only ransom from afar:
   See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car
   Of the o'ermastered victor stops, the reins
   Fall from his hands—his idle scimitar
   Starts from its belt—he rends his captive's chains,
And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains.
XVII.

   Thus, Venice, if no stronger claim were thine,
   Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot,
   Thy choral memory of the bard divine,
   Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot
   Which ties thee to thy tyrants; and thy lot
   Is shameful to the nations,—most of all,
   Albion! to thee:  the Ocean Queen should not
   Abandon Ocean's children; in the fall
Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall.
XVIII.

   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,
   Had stamped her image in me, and e'en so,
   Although I found her thus, we did not part,
   Perchance e'en 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 chastened 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
   Loftiest on loftiest and least sheltered rocks,
   Rooted in barrenness, where nought below
   Of soil supports them 'gainst the Alpine shocks
   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 desolate bosoms:  mute
   The camel labours with the heaviest load,
   And the wolf dies in silence.  Not bestowed
   In vain should such examples 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 destroyed,
   Even by the sufferer; and, in each event,
   Ends:—Some, with hope replenished and rebuoyed,
   Return to whence they came—with like intent,
   And weave their web again; some, bowed 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 formed 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 renewed, nor can efface
   The blight and blackening which it leaves behind,
   Which out of things familiar, undesigned,
   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 mourned, the loved, the lost—too many!—yet how few!
XXV.

   But my soul wanders; I demand it back
   To meditate amongst decay, and stand
   A ruin amidst ruins; there to track
   Fall'n states and buried greatness, o'er a land
   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 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 night—
   Sunset 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!
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
   Rolled o'er the peak of the far Rhaetian hill,
   As Day and Night contending were, until
   Nature reclaimed her order:—gently flows
   The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil
   The odorous purple of a new-born rose,
Which streams upon her stream, and glassed within it glows,
XXIX.

   Filled 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—'tis gone—and all is grey.
XXX.

   There is a tomb in Arqua;—reared in air,
   Pillared in their sarcophagus, repose
   The bones of Laura's lover:  here repair
   Many familiar with his well-sung woes,
   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
With his melodious tears, he gave himself to fame.
XXXI.

   They keep his dust in Arqua, where he died;
   The mountain-village where his latter days
   Went down the vale of years; and 'tis their pride—
   An 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 formed his monumental fane.
XXXII.

   And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt
   Is one of that complexion which seems made
   For those who their mortality have felt,
   And sought a refuge from their hopes decayed
   In the deep umbrage of a green hill's shade,
   Which shows a distant prospect far away
   Of busy cities, now in vain displayed,
   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,
   'Tis solitude should teach us how to die;
   It hath no flatterers; vanity can give
No hollow aid; alone—man with his God must strive:
XXXIV.

   Or, it may be, with demons, who impair
   The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey
   In melancholy bosoms, such as were
   Of moody texture from their earliest day,
   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! in thy wide and grass-grown streets,
   Whose symmetry was not for solitude,
   There seems as 'twere a curse upon the seat's
   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 impelled, 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 earned 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
Scattered 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 mad'st to mourn:
XXXVIII.

   THOU! formed 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 furrowed brow,
   Which emanated then, and dazzles now
   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! 'twas his
   In life and death to be the mark where Wrong
   Aimed with their poisoned arrows—but to miss.
   Oh, victor unsurpassed 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 scattered rays, they would not form a sun.
XL.

   Great as thou art, yet paralleled 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 called forth
   A new creation with his magic line,
   And, like the Ariosto of the North,
Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightly worth.
XLI.

   The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust
   The iron crown of laurel's mimicked leaves;
   Nor was the ominous element unjust,
   For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves
   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.

   Italia!  O Italia! thou who hast
   The fatal gift of beauty, which became
   A funeral dower of present woes and past,
   On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed 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 poured
   Down the deep Alps; nor would the hostile horde
   Of many-nationed 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
   AEgina lay, Piraeus 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 upreared
   Barbaric dwellings on their shattered site,
   Which only make more mourned and more endeared
   The few last rays of their far-scattered light,
   And the crushed relics of their vanished might.
   The Roman saw these tombs in his own age,
   These sepulchres of cities, which excite
   Sad wonder, and his yet surviving page
The moral lesson bears, drawn from such pilgrimage.
XLVI.

   That page is now before me, and on mine
   HIS country's ruin added to the mass
   Of perished states he mourned 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
   Nations have knelt to for the keys of heaven!
   Europe, repentant of her parricide,
   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, redeemed 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—
   Chained to the chariot of triumphal Art,
   We stand as captives, and would not depart.
   Away!—there need no words, nor terms precise,
   The paltry jargon of the marble mart,
   Where Pedantry gulls Folly—we have eyes:
Blood, pulse, and breast, confirm the Dardan Shepherd's prize.
LI.

   Appearedst thou not to Paris in this guise?
   Or to more deeply blest Anchises? or,
   In all thy perfect goddess-ship, when lies
   Before thee thy own vanquished Lord of War?
   And gazing in thy face as toward a star,
   Laid on thy lap, his eyes to thee upturn,
   Feeding on thy sweet cheek! while thy lips are
   With lava kisses melting while they burn,
Showered on his eyelids, brow, and mouth, as from an urn!
LII.

   Glowing, and circumfused in speechless love,
   Their full divinity inadequate
   That feeling to express, or to improve,
   The gods become as mortals, and man's fate
   Has moments like their brightest! but the weight
   Of earth recoils upon us;—let it go!
   We can recall such visions, and create
   From what has been, or might be, things which grow,
Into thy statue's form, and look like gods below.
LIII.

   I leave to learned fingers, and wise hands,
   The artist and his ape, to teach and tell
   How well his connoisseurship understands
   The graceful bend, and the voluptuous swell:
   Let these describe the undescribable:
   I would not their vile breath should crisp the stream
   Wherein that image shall for ever dwell;
   The unruffled mirror of the loveliest dream
That ever left the sky on the deep soul to beam.
LIV.

   In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie
   Ashes which make it holier, dust which is
   E'en in itself an immortality,
   Though there were nothing save the past, and this
   The particle of those sublimities
   Which have relapsed to chaos:—here repose
   Angelo's, Alfieri's bones, and his,
   The starry Galileo, with his woes;
Here Machiavelli's earth returned to whence it rose.
LV.

   These are four minds, which, like the elements,
   Might furnish forth creation:—Italy!
   Time, which hath wronged thee with ten thousand rents
   Of thine imperial garment, shall deny,
   And hath denied, to every other sky,
   Spirits which soar from ruin:—thy decay
   Is still impregnate with divinity,
   Which gilds it with revivifying ray;
Such as the great of yore, Canova is to-day.
LVI.

   But where repose the all Etruscan three—
   Dante, and Petrarch, and, scarce less than they,
   The Bard of Prose, creative spirit! he
   Of the Hundred Tales of love—where did they lay
   Their bones, distinguished from our common clay
   In death as life?  Are they resolved to dust,
   And have their country's marbles nought to say?
   Could not her quarries furnish forth one bust?
Did they not to her breast their filial earth entrust?
LVII.

   Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar,
   Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore;
   Thy factions, in their worse than civil war,
   Proscribed the bard whose name for evermore
   Their children's children would in vain adore
   With the remorse of ages; and the crown
   Which Petrarch's laureate brow supremely wore,
   Upon a far and foreign soil had grown,
His life, his fame, his grave, though rifled—not thine own.
LVIII.

   Boccaccio to his parent earth bequeathed
   His dust,—and lies it not her great among,
   With many a sweet and solemn requiem breathed
   O'er him who formed the Tuscan's siren tongue?
   That music in itself, whose sounds are song,
   The poetry of speech?  No;—even his tomb
   Uptorn, must bear the hyaena bigots' wrong,
   No more amidst the meaner dead find room,
Nor claim a passing sigh, because it told for WHOM?
LIX.

   And Santa Croce wants their mighty dust;
   Yet for this want more noted, as of yore
   The Caesar's pageant, shorn of Brutus' bust,
   Did but of Rome's best son remind her more:
   Happier Ravenna! on thy hoary shore,
   Fortress of falling empire! honoured sleeps
   The immortal exile;—Arqua, too, her store
   Of tuneful relics proudly claims and keeps,
While Florence vainly begs her banished dead, and weeps.
LX.

   What is her pyramid of precious stones?
   Of porphyry, jasper, agate, and all hues
   Of gem and marble, to encrust the bones
   Of merchant-dukes? the momentary dews
   Which, sparkling to the twilight stars, infuse
   Freshness in the green turf that wraps the dead,
   Whose names are mausoleums of the Muse,
   Are gently prest with far more reverent tread
Than ever paced the slab which paves the princely head.
LXI.

   There be more things to greet the heart and eyes
   In Arno's dome of Art's most princely shrine,
   Where Sculpture with her rainbow sister vies;
   There be more marvels yet—but not for mine;
   For I have been accustomed to entwine
   My thoughts with Nature rather in the fields
   Than Art in galleries:  though a work divine
   Calls for my spirit's homage, yet it yields
Less than it feels, because the weapon which it wields
LXII.

   Is of another temper, and I roam
   By Thrasimene's lake, in the defiles
   Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home;
   For there the Carthaginian's warlike wiles
   Come back before me, as his skill beguiles
   The host between the mountains and the shore,
   Where Courage falls in her despairing files,
   And torrents, swoll'n to rivers with their gore,
Reek through the sultry plain, with legions scattered o'er,
LXIII.

   Like to a forest felled by mountain winds;
   And such the storm of battle on this day,
   And such the frenzy, whose convulsion blinds
   To all save carnage, that, beneath the fray,
   An earthquake reeled unheededly away!
   None felt stern Nature rocking at his feet,
   And yawning forth a grave for those who lay
   Upon their bucklers for a winding-sheet;
Such is the absorbing hate when warring nations meet.
LXIV.

   The Earth to them was as a rolling bark
   Which bore them to Eternity; they saw
   The Ocean round, but had no time to mark
   The motions of their vessel:  Nature's law,
   In them suspended, recked not of the awe
   Which reigns when mountains tremble, and the birds
   Plunge in the clouds for refuge, and withdraw
   From their down-toppling nests; and bellowing herds
Stumble o'er heaving plains, and man's dread hath no words.
LXV.

   Far other scene is Thrasimene now;
   Her lake a sheet of silver, and her plain
   Rent by no ravage save the gentle plough;
   Her aged trees rise thick as once the slain
   Lay where their roots are; but a brook hath ta'en—
   A little rill of scanty stream and bed—
   A name of blood from that day's sanguine rain;
   And Sanguinetto tells ye where the dead
Made the earth wet, and turned the unwilling waters red.
LXVI.

   But thou, Clitumnus! in thy sweetest wave
   Of the most living crystal that was e'er
   The haunt of river nymph, to gaze and lave
   Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear
   Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-white steer
   Grazes; the purest god of gentle waters!
   And most serene of aspect, and most clear:
   Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughters,
A mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daughters!
LXVII.

   And on thy happy shore a temple still,
   Of small and delicate proportion, keeps,
   Upon a mild declivity of hill,
   Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps
   Thy current's calmness; oft from out it leaps
   The finny darter with the glittering scales,
   Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps;
   While, chance, some scattered water-lily sails
Down where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling tales.
LXVIII.

   Pass not unblest the genius of the place!
   If through the air a zephyr more serene
   Win to the brow, 'tis his; and if ye trace
   Along his margin a more eloquent green,
   If on the heart the freshness of the scene
   Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust
   Of weary life a moment lave it clean
   With Nature's baptism,—'tis to him ye must
Pay orisons for this suspension of disgust.
LXIX.

   The roar of waters!—from the headlong height
   Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice;
   The fall of waters! rapid as the light
   The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss;
   The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss,
   And boil in endless torture; while the sweat
   Of their great agony, wrung out from this
   Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet
That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set,
LXX.

   And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again
   Returns in an unceasing shower, which round,
   With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain,
   Is an eternal April to the ground,
   Making it all one emerald.  How profound
   The gulf! and how the giant element
   From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound,
   Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent
With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful vent
LXXI.

   To the broad column which rolls on, and shows
   More like the fountain of an infant sea
   Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes
   Of a new world, than only thus to be
   Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly,
   With many windings through the vale:—Look back!
   Lo! where it comes like an eternity,
   As if to sweep down all things in its track,
Charming the eye with dread,—a matchless cataract,
LXXII.

   Horribly beautiful! but on the verge,
   From side to side, beneath the glittering morn,
   An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge,
   Like Hope upon a deathbed, and, unworn
   Its steady dyes, while all around is torn
   By the distracted waters, bears serene
   Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn:
   Resembling, mid the torture of the scene,
Love watching Madness with unalterable mien.
LXXIII.

   Once more upon the woody Apennine,
   The infant Alps, which—had I not before
   Gazed on their mightier parents, where the pine
   Sits on more shaggy summits, and where roar
   The thundering lauwine—might be worshipped more;
   But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau rear
   Her never-trodden snow, and seen the hoar
   Glaciers of bleak Mont Blanc both far and near,
And in Chimari heard the thunder-hills of fear,
LXXIV.

   The Acroceraunian mountains of old name;
   And on Parnassus seen the eagles fly
   Like spirits of the spot, as 'twere for fame,
   For still they soared unutterably high:
   I've looked on Ida with a Trojan's eye;
   Athos, Olympus, AEtna, Atlas, made
   These hills seem things of lesser dignity,
   All, save the lone Soracte's height displayed,
Not NOW in snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid
LXXV.

   For our remembrance, and from out the plain
   Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break,
   And on the curl hangs pausing:  not in vain
   May he who will his recollections rake,
   And quote in classic raptures, and awake
   The hills with Latian echoes; I abhorred
   Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake,
   The drilled dull lesson, forced down word by word
In my repugnant youth, with pleasure to record
LXXVI.

   Aught that recalls the daily drug which turned
   My sickening memory; and, though Time hath taught
   My mind to meditate what then it learned,
   Yet such the fixed inveteracy wrought
   By the impatience of my early thought,
   That, with the freshness wearing out before
   My mind could relish what it might have sought,
   If free to choose, I cannot now restore
Its health; but what it then detested, still abhor.
LXXVII.

   Then farewell, Horace; whom I hated so,
   Not for thy faults, but mine; it is a curse
   To understand, not feel, thy lyric flow,
   To comprehend, but never love thy verse,
   Although no deeper moralist rehearse
   Our little life, nor bard prescribe his art,
   Nor livelier satirist the conscience pierce,
   Awakening without wounding the touched heart,
Yet fare thee well—upon Soracte's ridge we part.
LXXVIII.

   O Rome! my country! city of the soul!
   The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,
   Lone mother of dead empires! and control
   In their shut breasts their petty misery.
   What are our woes and sufferance?  Come and see
   The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way
   O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye!
   Whose agonies are evils of a day—
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay.
LXXIX.

   The Niobe of nations! there she stands,
   Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe;
   An empty urn within her withered hands,
   Whose holy dust was scattered long ago;
   The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now;
   The very sepulchres lie tenantless
   Of their heroic dwellers:  dost thou flow,
   Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness?
Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress!
LXXX.

   The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire,
   Have dwelt upon the seven-hilled city's pride:
   She saw her glories star by star expire,
   And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride,
   Where the car climbed the Capitol; far and wide
   Temple and tower went down, nor left a site;—
   Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void,
   O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light,
And say, 'Here was, or is,' where all is doubly night?
LXXXI.

   The double night of ages, and of her,
   Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt, and wrap
   All round us; we but feel our way to err:
   The ocean hath its chart, the stars their map;
   And knowledge spreads them on her ample lap;
   But Rome is as the desert, where we steer
   Stumbling o'er recollections:  now we clap
   Our hands, and cry, 'Eureka!' it is clear—
When but some false mirage of ruin rises near.
LXXXII.

   Alas, the lofty city! and alas
   The trebly hundred triumphs! and the day
   When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass
   The conqueror's sword in bearing fame away!
   Alas for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay,
   And Livy's pictured page!  But these shall be
   Her resurrection; all beside—decay.
   Alas for Earth, for never shall we see
That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was free!
LXXXIII.

   O thou, whose chariot rolled on Fortune's wheel,
   Triumphant Sylla!  Thou, who didst subdue
   Thy country's foes ere thou wouldst pause to feel
   The wrath of thy own wrongs, or reap the due
   Of hoarded vengeance till thine eagles flew
   O'er prostrate Asia;—thou, who with thy frown
   Annihilated senates—Roman, too,
   With all thy vices, for thou didst lay down
With an atoning smile a more than earthly crown—
LXXXIV.

   The dictatorial wreath,—couldst thou divine
   To what would one day dwindle that which made
   Thee more than mortal? and that so supine
   By aught than Romans Rome should thus be laid?
   She who was named eternal, and arrayed
   Her warriors but to conquer—she who veiled
   Earth with her haughty shadow, and displayed
   Until the o'er-canopied horizon failed,
Her rushing wings—Oh! she who was almighty hailed!
LXXXV.

   Sylla was first of victors; but our own,
   The sagest of usurpers, Cromwell!—he
   Too swept off senates while he hewed the throne
   Down to a block—immortal rebel!  See
   What crimes it costs to be a moment free
   And famous through all ages!  But beneath
   His fate the moral lurks of destiny;
   His day of double victory and death
Beheld him win two realms, and, happier, yield his breath.
LXXXVI.

   The third of the same moon whose former course
   Had all but crowned him, on the self-same day
   Deposed him gently from his throne of force,
   And laid him with the earth's preceding clay.
   And showed not Fortune thus how fame and sway,
   And all we deem delightful, and consume
   Our souls to compass through each arduous way,
   Are in her eyes less happy than the tomb?
Were they but so in man's, how different were his doom!
LXXXVII.

   And thou, dread statue! yet existent in
   The austerest form of naked majesty,
   Thou who beheldest, mid the assassins' din,
   At thy bathed base the bloody Caesar lie,
   Folding his robe in dying dignity,
   An offering to thine altar from the queen
   Of gods and men, great Nemesis! did he die,
   And thou, too, perish, Pompey? have ye been
Victors of countless kings, or puppets of a scene?
LXXXVIII.

   And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome!
   She-wolf! whose brazen-imaged dugs impart
   The milk of conquest yet within the dome
   Where, as a monument of antique art,
   Thou standest:—Mother of the mighty heart,
   Which the great founder sucked from thy wild teat,
   Scorched by the Roman Jove's ethereal dart,
   And thy limbs blacked with lightning—dost thou yet
Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget?
LXXXIX.

   Thou dost;—but all thy foster-babes are dead—
   The men of iron; and the world hath reared
   Cities from out their sepulchres:  men bled
   In imitation of the things they feared,
   And fought and conquered, and the same course steered,
   At apish distance; but as yet none have,
   Nor could, the same supremacy have neared,
   Save one vain man, who is not in the grave,
But, vanquished by himself, to his own slaves a slave,
XC.

   The fool of false dominion—and a kind
   Of bastard Caesar, following him of old
   With steps unequal; for the Roman's mind
   Was modelled in a less terrestrial mould,
   With passions fiercer, yet a judgment cold,
   And an immortal instinct which redeemed
   The frailties of a heart so soft, yet bold.
   Alcides with the distaff now he seemed
At Cleopatra's feet, and now himself he beamed.
XCI.

   And came, and saw, and conquered.  But the man
   Who would have tamed his eagles down to flee,
   Like a trained falcon, in the Gallic van,
   Which he, in sooth, long led to victory,
   With a deaf heart which never seemed to be
   A listener to itself, was strangely framed;
   With but one weakest weakness—vanity:
   Coquettish in ambition, still he aimed
At what?  Can he avouch, or answer what he claimed?
XCII.

   And would be all or nothing—nor could wait
   For the sure grave to level him; few years
   Had fixed him with the Caesars in his fate,
   On whom we tread:  For THIS the conqueror rears
   The arch of triumph! and for this the tears
   And blood of earth flow on as they have flowed,
   An universal deluge, which appears
   Without an ark for wretched man's abode,
And ebbs but to reflow!—Renew thy rainbow, God!
XCIII.

   What from this barren being do we reap?
   Our senses narrow, and our reason frail,
   Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep,
   And all things weighed in custom's falsest scale;
   Opinion an omnipotence, whose veil
   Mantles the earth with darkness, until right
   And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale
   Lest their own judgments should become too bright,
And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have too much light.
XCIV.

   And thus they plod in sluggish misery,
   Rotting from sire to son, and age to age,
   Proud of their trampled nature, and so die,
   Bequeathing their hereditary rage
   To the new race of inborn slaves, who wage
   War for their chains, and rather than be free,
   Bleed gladiator-like, and still engage
   Within the same arena where they see
Their fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree.
XCV.

   I speak not of men's creeds—they rest between
   Man and his Maker—but of things allowed,
   Averred, and known,—and daily, hourly seen—
   The yoke that is upon us doubly bowed,
   And the intent of tyranny avowed,
   The edict of Earth's rulers, who are grown
   The apes of him who humbled once the proud,
   And shook them from their slumbers on the throne;
Too glorious, were this all his mighty arm had done.
XCVI.

   Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be,
   And Freedom find no champion and no child
   Such as Columbia saw arise when she
   Sprung forth a Pallas, armed and undefiled?
   Or must such minds be nourished in the wild,
   Deep in the unpruned forest, midst the roar
   Of cataracts, where nursing nature smiled
   On infant Washington?  Has Earth no more
Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no such shore?
XCVII.

   But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime,
   And fatal have her Saturnalia been
   To Freedom's cause, in every age and clime;
   Because the deadly days which we have seen,
   And vile Ambition, that built up between
   Man and his hopes an adamantine wall,
   And the base pageant last upon the scene,
   Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrall
Which nips Life's tree, and dooms man's worst—his second fall.
XCVIII.

   Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying,
   Streams like the thunder-storm AGAINST the wind;
   Thy trumpet-voice, though broken now and dying,
   The loudest still the tempest leaves behind;
   Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind,
   Chopped by the axe, looks rough and little worth,
   But the sap lasts,—and still the seed we find
   Sown deep, even in the bosom of the North;
So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth.
XCIX.

   There is a stern round tower of other days,
   Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone,
   Such as an army's baffled strength delays,
   Standing with half its battlements alone,
   And with two thousand years of ivy grown,
   The garland of eternity, where wave
   The green leaves over all by time o'erthrown:
   What was this tower of strength? within its cave
What treasure lay so locked, so hid?—A woman's grave.
C.

   But who was she, the lady of the dead,
   Tombed in a palace?  Was she chaste and fair?
   Worthy a king's—or more—a Roman's bed?
   What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear?
   What daughter of her beauties was the heir?
   How lived—how loved—how died she?  Was she not
   So honoured—and conspicuously there,
   Where meaner relics must not dare to rot,
Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot?
CI.

   Was she as those who love their lords, or they
   Who love the lords of others? such have been
   Even in the olden time, Rome's annals say.
   Was she a matron of Cornelia's mien,
   Or the light air of Egypt's graceful queen,
   Profuse of joy; or 'gainst it did she war,
   Inveterate in virtue?  Did she lean
   To the soft side of the heart, or wisely bar
Love from amongst her griefs?—for such the affections are.
CII.

   Perchance she died in youth:  it may be, bowed
   With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb
   That weighed upon her gentle dust, a cloud
   Might gather o'er her beauty, and a gloom
   In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom
   Heaven gives its favourites—early death; yet shed
   A sunset charm around her, and illume
   With hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead,
Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaf-like red.
CIII.

   Perchance she died in age—surviving all,
   Charms, kindred, children—with the silver grey
   On her long tresses, which might yet recall,
   It may be, still a something of the day
   When they were braided, and her proud array
   And lovely form were envied, praised, and eyed
   By Rome—But whither would Conjecture stray?
   Thus much alone we know—Metella died,
The wealthiest Roman's wife:  Behold his love or pride!
CIV.

   I know not why—but standing thus by thee
   It seems as if I had thine inmate known,
   Thou Tomb! and other days come back on me
   With recollected music, though the tone
   Is changed and solemn, like the cloudy groan
   Of dying thunder on the distant wind;
   Yet could I seat me by this ivied stone
   Till I had bodied forth the heated mind,
Forms from the floating wreck which ruin leaves behind;
CV.

   And from the planks, far shattered o'er the rocks,
   Built me a little bark of hope, once more
   To battle with the ocean and the shocks
   Of the loud breakers, and the ceaseless roar
   Which rushes on the solitary shore
   Where all lies foundered that was ever dear:
   But could I gather from the wave-worn store
   Enough for my rude boat, where should I steer?
There woos no home, nor hope, nor life, save what is here.
CVI.

   Then let the winds howl on! their harmony
   Shall henceforth be my music, and the night
   The sound shall temper with the owlet's cry,
   As I now hear them, in the fading light
   Dim o'er the bird of darkness' native site,
   Answer each other on the Palatine,
   With their large eyes, all glistening grey and bright,
   And sailing pinions.—Upon such a shrine
What are our petty griefs?—let me not number mine.
CVII.

   Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grown
   Matted and massed together, hillocks heaped
   On what were chambers, arch crushed, column strown
   In fragments, choked-up vaults, and frescoes steeped
   In subterranean damps, where the owl peeped,
   Deeming it midnight:—Temples, baths, or halls?
   Pronounce who can; for all that Learning reaped
   From her research hath been, that these are walls—
Behold the Imperial Mount! 'tis thus the mighty falls.
CVIII.

   There is the moral of all human tales:
   'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past,
   First Freedom, and then Glory—when that fails,
   Wealth, vice, corruption—barbarism at last.
   And History, with all her volumes vast,
   Hath but ONE page,—'tis better written here,
   Where gorgeous Tyranny hath thus amassed
   All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear,
Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask—Away with words! draw near,
CIX.

   Admire, exult—despise—laugh, weep—for here
   There is such matter for all feeling:—Man!
   Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear,
   Ages and realms are crowded in this span,
   This mountain, whose obliterated plan
   The pyramid of empires pinnacled,
   Of Glory's gewgaws shining in the van
   Till the sun's rays with added flame were filled!
Where are its golden roofs? where those who dared to build?
CX.

   Tully was not so eloquent as thou,
   Thou nameless column with the buried base!
   What are the laurels of the Caesar's brow?
   Crown me with ivy from his dwelling-place.
   Whose arch or pillar meets me in the face,
   Titus or Trajan's?  No; 'tis that of Time:
   Triumph, arch, pillar, all he doth displace,
   Scoffing; and apostolic statues climb
To crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime,
CXI.

   Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome,
   And looking to the stars; they had contained
   A spirit which with these would find a home,
   The last of those who o'er the whole earth reigned,
   The Roman globe, for after none sustained
   But yielded back his conquests:—he was more
   Than a mere Alexander, and unstained
   With household blood and wine, serenely wore
His sovereign virtues—still we Trajan's name adore.
CXII.

   Where is the rock of Triumph, the high place
   Where Rome embraced her heroes? where the steep
   Tarpeian—fittest goal of Treason's race,
   The promontory whence the traitor's leap
   Cured all ambition?  Did the Conquerors heap
   Their spoils here?  Yes; and in yon field below,
   A thousand years of silenced factions sleep—
   The Forum, where the immortal accents glow,
And still the eloquent air breathes—burns with Cicero!
CXIII.

   The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood:
   Here a proud people's passions were exhaled,
   From the first hour of empire in the bud
   To that when further worlds to conquer failed;
   But long before had Freedom's face been veiled,
   And Anarchy assumed her attributes:
   Till every lawless soldier who assailed
   Trod on the trembling Senate's slavish mutes,
Or raised the venal voice of baser prostitutes.
CXIV.

   Then turn we to our latest tribune's name,
   From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee,
   Redeemer of dark centuries of shame—
   The friend of Petrarch—hope of Italy—
   Rienzi! last of Romans!  While the tree
   Of freedom's withered trunk puts forth a leaf,
   Even for thy tomb a garland let it be—
   The forum's champion, and the people's chief—
Her new-born Numa thou, with reign, alas! too brief.
CXV.

   Egeria! sweet creation of some heart
   Which found no mortal resting-place so fair
   As thine ideal breast; whate'er thou art
   Or wert,—a young Aurora of the air,
   The nympholepsy of some fond despair;
   Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth,
   Who found a more than common votary there
   Too much adoring; whatsoe'er thy birth,
Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth.
CXVI.

   The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled
   With thine Elysian water-drops; the face
   Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkled,
   Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place,
   Whose green wild margin now no more erase
   Art's works; nor must the delicate waters sleep,
   Prisoned in marble, bubbling from the base
   Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap
The rill runs o'er, and round, fern, flowers, and ivy creep,
CXVII.

   Fantastically tangled; the green hills
   Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass
   The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills
   Of summer birds sing welcome as ye pass;
   Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class,
   Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes
   Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass;
   The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes,
Kissed by the breath of heaven, seems coloured by its skies.
CXVIII.

   Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover,
   Egeria! thy all heavenly bosom beating
   For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover;
   The purple Midnight veiled that mystic meeting
   With her most starry canopy, and seating
   Thyself by thine adorer, what befell?
   This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting
   Of an enamoured Goddess, and the cell
Haunted by holy Love—the earliest oracle!
CXIX.

   And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying,
   Blend a celestial with a human heart;
   And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing,
   Share with immortal transports? could thine art
   Make them indeed immortal, and impart
   The purity of heaven to earthly joys,
   Expel the venom and not blunt the dart—
   The dull satiety which all destroys—
And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys?
CXX.

   Alas! our young affections run to waste,
   Or water but the desert:  whence arise
   But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste,
   Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes,
   Flowers whose wild odours breathe but agonies,
   And trees whose gums are poison; such the plants
   Which spring beneath her steps as Passion flies
   O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants
For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants.
CXXI.

   O Love! no habitant of earth thou art—
   An unseen seraph, we believe in thee,—
   A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart,
   But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see,
   The naked eye, thy form, as it should be;
   The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven,
   Even with its own desiring phantasy,
   And to a thought such shape and image given,
As haunts the unquenched soul—parched—wearied—wrung—and riven.
CXXII.

   Of its own beauty is the mind diseased,
   And fevers into false creation;—where,
   Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized?
   In him alone.  Can Nature show so fair?
   Where are the charms and virtues which we dare
   Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men,
   The unreached Paradise of our despair,
   Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen,
And overpowers the page where it would bloom again.
CXXIII.

   Who loves, raves—'tis youth's frenzy—but the cure
   Is bitterer still; as charm by charm unwinds
   Which robed our idols, and we see too sure
   Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's
   Ideal shape of such; yet still it binds
   The fatal spell, and still it draws us on,
   Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds;
   The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun,
Seems ever near the prize—wealthiest when most undone.
CXXIV.

   We wither from our youth, we gasp away—
   Sick—sick; unfound the boon, unslaked the thirst,
   Though to the last, in verge of our decay,
   Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first—
   But all too late,—so are we doubly curst.
   Love, fame, ambition, avarice—'tis the same—
   Each idle, and all ill, and none the worst—
   For all are meteors with a different name,
And death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame.
CXXV.

   Few—none—find what they love or could have loved:
   Though accident, blind contact, and the strong
   Necessity of loving, have removed
   Antipathies—but to recur, ere long,
   Envenomed with irrevocable wrong;
   And Circumstance, that unspiritual god
   And miscreator, makes and helps along
   Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod,
Whose touch turns hope to dust—the dust we all have trod.
CXXVI.

   Our life is a false nature—'tis not in
   The harmony of things,—this hard decree,
   This uneradicable taint of sin,
   This boundless upas, this all-blasting tree,
   Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be
   The skies which rain their plagues on men like dew—
   Disease, death, bondage, all the woes we see—
   And worse, the woes we see not—which throb through
The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new.
CXXVII.

   Yet let us ponder boldly—'tis a base
   Abandonment of reason to resign
   Our right of thought—our last and only place
   Of refuge; this, at least, shall still be mine:
   Though from our birth the faculty divine
   Is chained and tortured—cabined, cribbed, confined,
   And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shine
   Too brightly on the unprepared mind,
The beam pours in, for time and skill will couch the blind.
CXXVIII.

   Arches on arches! as it were that Rome,
   Collecting the chief trophies of her line,
   Would build up all her triumphs in one dome,
   Her Coliseum stands; the moonbeams shine
   As 'twere its natural torches, for divine
   Should be the light which streams here, to illume
   This long explored but still exhaustless mine
   Of contemplation; and the azure gloom
Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume
CXXIX.

   Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven,
   Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument,
   And shadows forth its glory.  There is given
   Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent,
   A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant
   His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power
   And magic in the ruined battlement,
   For which the palace of the present hour
Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower.
CXXX.

   O Time! the beautifier of the dead,
   Adorner of the ruin, comforter
   And only healer when the heart hath bled—
   Time! the corrector where our judgments err,
   The test of truth, love,—sole philosopher,
   For all beside are sophists, from thy thrift,
   Which never loses though it doth defer—
   Time, the avenger! unto thee I lift
My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift:
CXXXI.

   Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine
   And temple more divinely desolate,
   Among thy mightier offerings here are mine,
   Ruins of years—though few, yet full of fate:
   If thou hast ever seen me too elate,
   Hear me not; but if calmly I have borne
   Good, and reserved my pride against the hate
   Which shall not whelm me, let me not have worn
This iron in my soul in vain—shall THEY not mourn?
CXXXII.

   And thou, who never yet of human wrong
   Left the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis!
   Here, where the ancients paid thee homage long—
   Thou, who didst call the Furies from the abyss,
   And round Orestes bade them howl and hiss
   For that unnatural retribution—just,
   Had it but been from hands less near—in this
   Thy former realm, I call thee from the dust!
Dost thou not hear my heart?—Awake! thou shalt, and must.
CXXXIII.

   It is not that I may not have incurred
   For my ancestral faults or mine the wound
   I bleed withal, and had it been conferred
   With a just weapon, it had flowed unbound.
   But now my blood shall not sink in the ground;
   To thee I do devote it—THOU shalt take
   The vengeance, which shall yet be sought and found,
   Which if I have not taken for the sake—
But let that pass—I sleep, but thou shalt yet awake.
CXXXIV.

   And if my voice break forth, 'tis not that now
   I shrink from what is suffered:  let him speak
   Who hath beheld decline upon my brow,
   Or seen my mind's convulsion leave it weak;
   But in this page a record will I seek.
   Not in the air shall these my words disperse,
   Though I be ashes; a far hour shall wreak
   The deep prophetic fulness of this verse,
And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse!
CXXXV.

   That curse shall be forgiveness.—Have I not—
   Hear me, my mother Earth! behold it, Heaven!—
   Have I not had to wrestle with my lot?
   Have I not suffered things to be forgiven?
   Have I not had my brain seared, my heart riven,
   Hopes sapped, name blighted, Life's life lied away?
   And only not to desperation driven,
   Because not altogether of such clay
As rots into the souls of those whom I survey.
CXXXVI.

   From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy
   Have I not seen what human things could do?
   From the loud roar of foaming calumny
   To the small whisper of the as paltry few
   And subtler venom of the reptile crew,
   The Janus glance of whose significant eye,
   Learning to lie with silence, would SEEM true,
   And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh,
Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy.
CXXXVII.

   But I have lived, and have not lived in vain:
   My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire,
   And my frame perish even in conquering pain,
   But there is that within me which shall tire
   Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire:
   Something unearthly, which they deem not of,
   Like the remembered tone of a mute lyre,
   Shall on their softened spirits sink, and move
In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love.
CXXXVIII.

   The seal is set.—Now welcome, thou dread Power
   Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here
   Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight hour
   With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear:
   Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear
   Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene
   Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear
   That we become a part of what has been,
And grow unto the spot, all-seeing but unseen.
CXXXIX.

   And here the buzz of eager nations ran,
   In murmured pity, or loud-roared applause,
   As man was slaughtered by his fellow-man.
   And wherefore slaughtered? wherefore, but because
   Such were the bloody circus' genial laws,
   And the imperial pleasure.—Wherefore not?
   What matters where we fall to fill the maws
   Of worms—on battle-plains or listed spot?
Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot.
CXL.

   I see before me the Gladiator lie:
   He leans upon his hand—his manly brow
   Consents to death, but conquers agony,
   And his drooped head sinks gradually low—
   And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
   From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
   Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now
   The arena swims around him:  he is gone,
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.
CXLI.

   He heard it, but he heeded not—his eyes
   Were with his heart, and that was far away;
   He recked not of the life he lost nor prize,
   But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
   THERE were his young barbarians all at play,
   THERE was their Dacian mother—he, their sire,
   Butchered to make a Roman holiday—
   All this rushed with his blood—Shall he expire,
And unavenged?—Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!
CXLII.

   But here, where murder breathed her bloody steam;
   And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways,
   And roared or murmured like a mountain-stream
   Dashing or winding as its torrent strays;
   Here, where the Roman million's blame or praise
   Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd,
   My voice sounds much—and fall the stars' faint rays
   On the arena void—seats crushed, walls bowed,
And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud.
CXLIII.

   A ruin—yet what ruin! from its mass
   Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been reared;
   Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass,
   And marvel where the spoil could have appeared.
   Hath it indeed been plundered, or but cleared?
   Alas! developed, opens the decay,
   When the colossal fabric's form is neared:
   It will not bear the brightness of the day,
Which streams too much on all, years, man, have reft away.
CXLIV.

   But when the rising moon begins to climb
   Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there;
   When the stars twinkle through the loops of time,
   And the low night-breeze waves along the air,
   The garland-forest, which the grey walls wear,
   Like laurels on the bald first Caesar's head;
   When the light shines serene, but doth not glare,
   Then in this magic circle raise the dead:
Heroes have trod this spot—'tis on their dust ye tread.
CXLV.

   'While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;
   When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;
   And when Rome falls—the World.'  From our own land
   Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall
   In Saxon times, which we are wont to call
   Ancient; and these three mortal things are still
   On their foundations, and unaltered all;
   Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's skill,
The World, the same wide den—of thieves, or what ye will.
CXLVI.

   Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime—
   Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods,
   From Jove to Jesus—spared and blest by time;
   Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods
   Arch, empire, each thing round thee, and man plods
   His way through thorns to ashes—glorious dome!
   Shalt thou not last?—Time's scythe and tyrants' rods
   Shiver upon thee—sanctuary and home
Of art and piety—Pantheon!—pride of Rome!
CXLVII.

   Relic of nobler days, and noblest arts!
   Despoiled yet perfect, with thy circle spreads
   A holiness appealing to all hearts—
   To art a model; and to him who treads
   Rome for the sake of ages, Glory sheds
   Her light through thy sole aperture; to those
   Who worship, here are altars for their beads;
   And they who feel for genius may repose
Their eyes on honoured forms, whose busts around them close.
CXLVIII.

   There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light
   What do I gaze on?  Nothing:  Look again!
   Two forms are slowly shadowed on my sight—
   Two insulated phantoms of the brain:
   It is not so:  I see them full and plain—
   An old man, and a female young and fair,
   Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein
   The blood is nectar:—but what doth she there,
With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare?
CXLIX.

   Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life,
   Where ON the heart and FROM the heart we took
   Our first and sweetest nurture, when the wife,
   Blest into mother, in the innocent look,
   Or even the piping cry of lips that brook
   No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives
   Man knows not, when from out its cradled nook
   She sees her little bud put forth its leaves—
What may the fruit be yet?—I know not—Cain was Eve's.
CL.

   But here youth offers to old age the food,
   The milk of his own gift:—it is her sire
   To whom she renders back the debt of blood
   Born with her birth.  No; he shall not expire
   While in those warm and lovely veins the fire
   Of health and holy feeling can provide
   Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises higher
   Than Egypt's river:—from that gentle side
Drink, drink and live, old man! heaven's realm holds no such tide.
CLI.

   The starry fable of the milky way
   Has not thy story's purity; it is
   A constellation of a sweeter ray,
   And sacred Nature triumphs more in this
   Reverse of her decree, than in the abyss
   Where sparkle distant worlds:—Oh, holiest nurse!
   No drop of that clear stream its way shall miss
   To thy sire's heart, replenishing its source
With life, as our freed souls rejoin the universe.
CLII.

   Turn to the mole which Hadrian reared on high,
   Imperial mimic of old Egypt's piles,
   Colossal copyist of deformity,
   Whose travelled phantasy from the far Nile's
   Enormous model, doomed the artist's toils
   To build for giants, and for his vain earth,
   His shrunken ashes, raise this dome:  How smiles
   The gazer's eye with philosophic mirth,
To view the huge design which sprung from such a birth!
CLIII.

   But lo! the dome—the vast and wondrous dome,
   To which Diana's marvel was a cell—
   Christ's mighty shrine above his martyr's tomb!
   I have beheld the Ephesian's miracle—
   Its columns strew the wilderness, and dwell
   The hyaena and the jackal in their shade;
   I have beheld Sophia's bright roofs swell
   Their glittering mass i' the sun, and have surveyed
Its sanctuary the while the usurping Moslem prayed;
CLIV.

   But thou, of temples old, or altars new,
   Standest alone—with nothing like to thee—
   Worthiest of God, the holy and the true,
   Since Zion's desolation, when that he
   Forsook his former city, what could be,
   Of earthly structures, in his honour piled,
   Of a sublimer aspect?  Majesty,
   Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisled
In this eternal ark of worship undefiled.
CLV.

   Enter:  its grandeur overwhelms thee not;
   And why? it is not lessened; but thy mind,
   Expanded by the genius of the spot,
   Has grown colossal, and can only find
   A fit abode wherein appear enshrined
   Thy hopes of immortality; and thou
   Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined,
   See thy God face to face, as thou dost now
His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by his brow.
CLVI.

   Thou movest—but increasing with th' advance,
   Like climbing some great Alp, which still doth rise,
   Deceived by its gigantic elegance;
   Vastness which grows—but grows to harmonise—
   All musical in its immensities;
   Rich marbles—richer painting—shrines where flame
   The lamps of gold—and haughty dome which vies
   In air with Earth's chief structures, though their frame
Sits on the firm-set ground—and this the clouds must claim.
CLVII.

   Thou seest not all; but piecemeal thou must break
   To separate contemplation, the great whole;
   And as the ocean many bays will make,
   That ask the eye—so here condense thy soul
   To more immediate objects, and control
   Thy thoughts until thy mind hath got by heart
   Its eloquent proportions, and unroll
   In mighty graduations, part by part,
The glory which at once upon thee did not dart.
CLVIII.

   Not by its fault—but thine:  Our outward sense
   Is but of gradual grasp—and as it is
   That what we have of feeling most intense
   Outstrips our faint expression; e'en so this
   Outshining and o'erwhelming edifice
   Fools our fond gaze, and greatest of the great
   Defies at first our nature's littleness,
   Till, growing with its growth, we thus dilate
Our spirits to the size of that they contemplate.
CLIX.

   Then pause and be enlightened; there is more
   In such a survey than the sating gaze
   Of wonder pleased, or awe which would adore
   The worship of the place, or the mere praise
   Of art and its great masters, who could raise
   What former time, nor skill, nor thought could plan;
   The fountain of sublimity displays
   Its depth, and thence may draw the mind of man
Its golden sands, and learn what great conceptions can.
CLX.

   Or, turning to the Vatican, go see
   Laocoon's torture dignifying pain—
   A father's love and mortal's agony
   With an immortal's patience blending:—Vain
   The struggle; vain, against the coiling strain
   And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp,
   The old man's clench; the long envenomed chain
   Rivets the living links,—the enormous asp
Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp.
CLXI.

   Or view the Lord of the unerring bow,
   The God of life, and poesy, and light—
   The Sun in human limbs arrayed, and brow
   All radiant from his triumph in the fight;
   The shaft hath just been shot—the arrow bright
   With an immortal's vengeance; in his eye
   And nostril beautiful disdain, and might
   And majesty, flash their full lightnings by,
Developing in that one glance the Deity.
CLXII.

   But in his delicate form—a dream of Love,
   Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast
   Longed for a deathless lover from above,
   And maddened in that vision—are expressed
   All that ideal beauty ever blessed
   The mind within its most unearthly mood,
   When each conception was a heavenly guest—
   A ray of immortality—and stood
Starlike, around, until they gathered to a god?
CLXIII.

   And if it be Prometheus stole from heaven
   The fire which we endure, it was repaid
   By him to whom the energy was given
   Which this poetic marble hath arrayed
   With an eternal glory—which, if made
   By human hands, is not of human thought
   And Time himself hath hallowed it, nor laid
   One ringlet in the dust—nor hath it caught
A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which 'twas wrought.
CLXIV.

   But where is he, the pilgrim of my song,
   The being who upheld it through the past?
   Methinks he cometh late and tarries long.
   He is no more—these breathings are his last;
   His wanderings done, his visions ebbing fast,
   And he himself as nothing:—if he was
   Aught but a phantasy, and could be classed
   With forms which live and suffer—let that pass—
His shadow fades away into Destruction's mass,
CLXV.

   Which gathers shadow, substance, life, and all
   That we inherit in its mortal shroud,
   And spreads the dim and universal pall
   Thro' which all things grow phantoms; and the cloud
   Between us sinks and all which ever glowed,
   Till Glory's self is twilight, and displays
   A melancholy halo scarce allowed
   To hover on the verge of darkness; rays
Sadder than saddest night, for they distract the gaze,
CLXVI.

   And send us prying into the abyss,
   To gather what we shall be when the frame
   Shall be resolved to something less than this
   Its wretched essence; and to dream of fame,
   And wipe the dust from off the idle name
   We never more shall hear,—but never more,
   Oh, happier thought! can we be made the same:
   It is enough, in sooth, that ONCE we bore
These fardels of the heart—the heart whose sweat was gore.
CLXVII.

   Hark! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds,
   A long, low distant murmur of dread sound,
   Such as arises when a nation bleeds
   With some deep and immedicable wound;
   Through storm and darkness yawns the rending ground.
   The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the chief
   Seems royal still, though with her head discrowned,
   And pale, but lovely, with maternal grief
She clasps a babe, to whom her breast yields no relief.
CLXVIII.

   Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou?
   Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead?
   Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low
   Some less majestic, less beloved head?
   In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled,
   The mother of a moment, o'er thy boy,
   Death hushed that pang for ever:  with thee fled
   The present happiness and promised joy
Which filled the imperial isles so full it seemed to cloy.
CLXIX.

   Peasants bring forth in safety.—Can it be,
   O thou that wert so happy, so adored!
   Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee,
   And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, cease to hoard
   Her many griefs for One; for she had poured
   Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head
   Beheld her Iris.—Thou, too, lonely lord,
   And desolate consort—vainly wert thou wed!
The husband of a year! the father of the dead!
CLXX.

   Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made:
   Thy bridal's fruit is ashes; in the dust
   The fair-haired Daughter of the Isles is laid,
   The love of millions!  How we did entrust
   Futurity to her! and, though it must
   Darken above our bones, yet fondly deemed
   Our children should obey her child, and blessed
   Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seemed
Like star to shepherd's eyes; 'twas but a meteor beamed.
CLXXI.

   Woe unto us, not her; for she sleeps well:
   The fickle reek of popular breath, the tongue
   Of hollow counsel, the false oracle,
   Which from the birth of monarchy hath rung
   Its knell in princely ears, till the o'erstrung
   Nations have armed in madness, the strange fate
   Which tumbles mightiest sovereigns, and hath flung
   Against their blind omnipotence a weight
Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon or late,—
CLXXII.

   These might have been her destiny; but no,
   Our hearts deny it:  and so young, so fair,
   Good without effort, great without a foe;
   But now a bride and mother—and now THERE!
   How many ties did that stern moment tear!
   From thy Sire's to his humblest subject's breast
   Is linked the electric chain of that despair,
   Whose shock was as an earthquake's, and oppressed
The land which loved thee so, that none could love thee best.
CLXXIII.

   Lo, Nemi! navelled in the woody hills
   So far, that the uprooting wind which tears
   The oak from his foundation, and which spills
   The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears
   Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares
   The oval mirror of thy glassy lake;
   And, calm as cherished hate, its surface wears
   A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake,
All coiled into itself and round, as sleeps the snake.
CLXXIV.

   And near Albano's scarce divided waves
   Shine from a sister valley;—and afar
   The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves
   The Latian coast where sprung the Epic war,
   'Arms and the Man,' whose reascending star
   Rose o'er an empire,—but beneath thy right
   Tully reposed from Rome;—and where yon bar
   Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight,
The Sabine farm was tilled, the weary bard's delight.
CLXXV.

   But I forget.—My pilgrim's shrine is won,
   And he and I must part,—so let it be,—
   His task and mine alike are nearly done;
   Yet once more let us look upon the sea:
   The midland ocean breaks on him and me,
   And from the Alban mount we now behold
   Our friend of youth, that ocean, which when we
   Beheld it last by Calpe's rock unfold
Those waves, we followed on till the dark Euxine rolled
CLXXVI.

   Upon the blue Symplegades:  long years—
   Long, though not very many—since have done
   Their work on both; some suffering and some tears
   Have left us nearly where we had begun:
   Yet not in vain our mortal race hath run,
   We have had our reward—and it is here;
   That we can yet feel gladdened by the sun,
   And reap from earth, sea, joy almost as dear
As if there were no man to trouble what is clear.
CLXXVII.

   Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place,
   With one fair Spirit for my minister,
   That I might all forget the human race,
   And, hating no one, love but only her!
   Ye Elements!—in whose ennobling stir
   I feel myself exalted—can ye not
   Accord me such a being?  Do I err
   In deeming such inhabit many a spot?
Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot.
CLXXVIII.

   There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
   There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
   There is society where none intrudes,
   By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
   I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
   From these our interviews, in which I steal
   From all I may be, or have been before,
   To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
CLXXIX.

   Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean—roll!
   Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
   Man marks the earth with ruin—his control
   Stops with the shore;—upon the watery plain
   The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
   A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
   When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
   He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.
CLXXX.

   His steps are not upon thy paths,—thy fields
   Are not a spoil for him,—thou dost arise
   And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
   For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
   Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
   And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray
   And howling, to his gods, where haply lies
   His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth:—there let him lay.
CLXXXI.

   The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
   Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
   And monarchs tremble in their capitals.
   The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
   Their clay creator the vain title take
   Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;
   These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
   They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.
CLXXXII.

   Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee—
   Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
   Thy waters washed them power while they were free
   And many a tyrant since:  their shores obey
   The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
   Has dried up realms to deserts:  not so thou,
   Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play—
   Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow—
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
CLXXXIII.

   Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
   Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
   Calm or convulsed—in breeze, or gale, or storm,
   Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
   Dark-heaving;—boundless, endless, and sublime—
   The image of Eternity—the throne
   Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime
   The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee:  thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.
CLXXXIV.

   And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
   Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
   Borne like thy bubbles, onward:  from a boy
   I wantoned with thy breakers—they to me
   Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
   Made them a terror—'twas a pleasing fear,
   For I was as it were a child of thee,
   And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane—as I do here.
CLXXXV.

   My task is done—my song hath ceased—my theme
   Has died into an echo; it is fit
   The spell should break of this protracted dream.
   The torch shall be extinguished which hath lit
   My midnight lamp—and what is writ, is writ—
   Would it were worthier! but I am not now
   That which I have been—and my visions flit
   Less palpably before me—and the glow
Which in my spirit dwelt is fluttering, faint, and low.
CLXXXVI.

   Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been—
   A sound which makes us linger; yet, farewell!
   Ye, who have traced the Pilgrim to the scene
   Which is his last, if in your memories dwell
   A thought which once was his, if on ye swell
   A single recollection, not in vain
   He wore his sandal-shoon and scallop shell;
   Farewell! with HIM alone may rest the pain,
If such there were—with YOU, the moral of his strain.