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,

And though the long, long conflict hath been spent

In vain, and never more (save when the cloud

Which overhangs the Apennine, my mind's eye

Pierces to fancy Florence, once so proud Of me) can I return, though but to die, 40 Unto my native soil, they have not yet Quench'd the old exile's spirit, stern and high.

But the sun, though not overcast, must set, And the night cometh; I am old in days, And deeds, and contemplation, and have met

Destruction face to face in all his ways. The world hath left me, what it found me, pure,

And if I have not gather'd yet its praise, I sought it not by any baser lure. Man wrongs, and Time

name

avenges, and

my 50

May form a monument not all obscure (Though such was not my ambition's end or aim),

To add to the vain-glorious list of those Who dabble in the pettiness of fame, And make men's fickle breath the wind that blows

Their sail, and deem it glory to be class'd With conquerors and virtue's other foes In bloody chronicles of ages past.

I would have had my Florence great and free:

Oh Florence! Florence! unto me thou wast

60

Like that Jerusalem which the almighty He

Wept over, but thou wouldst not!' As the bird Gathers its

thee

young, I would have gather'd

Beneath a parent pinion, hadst thou heard My voice; but as the adder, deaf and

fierce,

Forsooth is over and repeal'd her doom:

No, she denied me what was mine - my roof,

And shall not have what is not hers - my tomb.

Too long her armèd 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 forgetful

ness,

91

Thee, whom I late saw in thy loftiest

reign,

Even in that glorious vision, which to see And live was never granted until now,

And yet thou hast permitted this to me. Alas! with what a weight upon my brow 130 The sense of earth and earthly things come back,

Corrosive passions, feelings dull and low, The heart's quick throb upon the mental rack,

Long day, and dreary night; the retro

spect

The unborn earthquake yet is in the womb,

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, 50 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

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. 90 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 Thou hadst been spared, but his involved thy fate.

Oh! Rome, the spoiler or the spoil of France,

From Brennus to the Bourbon, never,

never