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, 140 And join their strength to that which with thee copes; 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.

among them to feel more for them as a nation than for any other people in existence but they want Union [see line 145], and they want principle; and I doubt their success."—Letters, 1901, v. 8, note 1.]

CANTO THE THIRD.

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 martyred nation's gore, Will not in vain arise to where belongs Omnipotence and Mercy evermore:

il.

Like to a harpstring 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

the martyred country's gore

Will not in vain arise to whom belongs.—[MS. erased.]

ΙΟ

20

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 poured 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

30

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

Leans sculptured Beauty, which Death cannot blight: 40
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 learned, the generous, and the brave,
Native to thee as Summer to thy skies,
Conquerors on foreign shores, and the far wave,'
Discoverers of new worlds, which take their name;

2

1. Alexander of Parma, Spinola, Pescara, Eugene of Savoy, Montecuccoli.

[Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma (1546-1592), recovered the Southern Netherlands for Spain, 1578-79, made Henry IV. raise the siege of Paris, 1590, etc.

Ambrogio, Marchese di Spinola (1569-1630), a Maltese by birth, entered the Spanish service 1602, took Ostend 1604, invested Bergenop-Zoom, etc.

Ferdinando Francesco dagli Avalos, Marquis of Pescara (1496-1525), took Milan November 19, 1521, fought at Lodi, etc., was wounded at the battle of Padua, February 24, 1525. He was the husband of Vittoria Colonna, and when he was in captivity at Ravenna wrote some verses in her honour.

François Eugene (1663-1736), Prince of Savoy-Carignan, defeated the French at Turin, 1706, and (with Marlborough) at Malplaquet, 1709; the Turks at Peterwardein, 1716, etc.

Raimondo Montecuccoli, a Modenese (1608-1680), defeated the Turks at St. Gothard in 1664, and in 1675-6 commanded on the Rhine, and out-generalled Turenne and the Prince de Condé.]

2. Columbus, Americus Vespusius, Sebastian Cabot.

[Christopher Columbus (circ. 1430-1506), a Genoese, discovered mainland of America, 1498; Amerigo Vespucci (1451-1512), a Florentine, explored coasts of America, 1497-1504; Sebastian Cabot (1477-1557), son of Giovanni Cabotto or Gavotto, a Venetian, discovered coasts of Labrador, etc., June, 1497.]

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.1
Yet through this centuried eclipse of woe

50

60

Some voices shall be heard, and Earth shall listen; Poets shall follow in the path I show,

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 feathered King,
But fly more near the earth; how many a phrase
Sublime shall lavished be on some small prince
In all the prodigality of Praise !

And language, eloquently false, evince iii.

The harlotry of Genius, which, like Beauty,iv.

i. Yet through this many-yeared eclipse of Woe.

70

[MS. Alternative reading.] Yet through this murky interreign of Woe.—[MS. erased.] ii. Which choirs the birds to song -.-[MS. Alternative reading.] iii. And Pearls flung down to regal

iv. The whoredom of high Genius

1. [Compare

Swine evince.

[MS. Alternative reading.] -[MS. Alternative reading.]

"Ah! servile Italy, grief's hostelry!
A ship without a pilot in great tempest!"

Purgatorio, vi. 76, 77.]

Too oft forgets its own self-reverence, And looks on prostitution as a duty.1

He who once enters in a Tyrant's halli. 2

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 3-
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 !

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90

Thus trammelled, thus condemned 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 sonneteers

There shall be some who will not sing in vain,

i. And prides itself in prostituted duty.-[MS. Alternative reading.]

1. [Alfieri, in his Autobiography... (1845, Period III. chap. viii. p. 92) notes and deprecates the servile manner in which Metastasio went on his knees before Maria Theresa in the Imperial gardens of Schoenbrunnen.]

2. A verse from the Greek tragedians, with which Pompey took leave of Cornelia [daughter of Metellus Scipio, and widow of P. Crassus] on entering the boat in which he was slain. [The verse, or verses, are said to be by Sophocles, and are quoted by Plutarch, in his Life of Pompey, c. 78, Vitæ, 1814, vii. 159. They run thus

Οστις γὰρ ὡς τύραννον ἐμπορεύεται,

Κείνου ἐστὶ δοῦλος, κἂν ἐλεύθερος μόλῃ.

("Seek'st thou a tyrant's door? then farewell, freedom!
Though free as air before.")

Vide Incert. Fab. Fragm., No. 789, Trag. Græc. Fragm., A. Nauck, 1889, p. 316.]

3. The verse and sentiment are taken from Homer.

[Ήμισυ γάρ τ' ἀρετῆς ἀποαίνυται εὐρύοπα Ζεύς
Ανέρος, εἶτ ̓ ἄν μιν κατὰ δούλιον ἦμαρ ἕλῃσιν.

Odyssey, xvii. 322, 323.]