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Though, like old Marius from Minturnæ's marsh | Where yet my boys are, and that fatal she,

And Carthage ruins, my lone breast may burn
At times with evil feelings hot and harsh,
And sometimes the last pangs of a vile foe
Writhe in a dream before me, and o'erarch
My brow with hopes of triumph,-let them go!
Such are the last infirmities of those
Who long have suffer'd more than mortal wo,
And yet being mortal still, have no repose,

But on the pillow of Revenge-Revenge,
Who sleeps to dream of blood, and waking glows
With the oft-baffled, slakeless thirst of change,

When we shall mount again, and they that trod
Be trampled on, while Death and Até range
O'er humbled heads and sever'd necks-Great God!
Take these thoughts from me-to thy hands I yield
My many wrongs, and thine almighty rod
Will fall on those who smote me,-be my shield!
As thou hast been in peril, and in pain,
In turbulent cities, and the tented field-
In toil, and many troubles borne in vain

For Florence,-I appeal from her to Thee!
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

Their mother, the cold partner who hath brought
Destruction for a dowry-this to see

And feel, and know without repair, hath taught
A bitter lesson; but it leaves me free:
I have not vilely found, nor basely sought,
They made an exile-not a slave of me.

CANTO II.

THE Spirit of the fervent days of Old,
When words were things that came to pass, and
thought

Flash'd o'er the future, bidding men behold
Their children's children's doom already brought
Forth from the abyss of time which is to be,
The chaos of events, where lie half-wrought
Shapes that must undergo mortality;
What the great Seers of Israel wore within,
That spirit was on them, and is on me,

And if Cassandra-like, amidst the din

Of conflict none will hear, or hearing heed
This voice from out the Wilderness, the sin

The sense of earth and earthly things come back, Be theirs, and my own feelings be my meed,
Corrosive passions, feelings dull and low,

The heart's quick throb upon the mental rack,
Long day, and dreary night; the retrospect
Of half a century bloody and black,
And the frail few years I may yet expect
Hoary and hopeless, but less hard to bear,
For I have been too long and deeply wreck'd

On the lone rock of desolate Despair

To lift my eyes more to the passing sail
Which shuns that reef so horrible and bare,
Nor raise my voice-for who would heed my wail?
I am not of this people, nor this age,
And yet my harpings will unfold a tale
Which shall preserve these times when not a page
Of their perturbed annals could attract
An eye to gaze upon their civil rage,
Did not my verse embalm full many an act
Worthless as they who wrought it: 'tis the doom
Of spirits of my order to be rack'd
In life, to wear their hearts out, and consume
Their days in endless strife, and die alone;
Then future thousands crowd around their tomb,
And pilgrims come from climes where they have
known

The name of him-who now is but a name,
And wasting homage o'er the sullen stone,
Spread his-by him unheard, unheeded-fame;
And mine at least hath cost me dear: to die
Is nothing, but to wither thus-to tame
My mind down from its own infinity-

To live in narrow ways with little men,
A common sight to every common eye,
A wanderer, while even wolves can find a den,
Ripp'd from all kindred, from all home, all things
That make communion sweet, and softer pain-
To feel me in the solitude of kings

Without the power that makes them bear a crown-
To envy every dove his nest and wings
Which waft him where the Apennine looks down
On Arno, till he perches, it may be,
Within my all inexorable town,

The only guerdon I have ever known.

Hast thou not bled? and hast thou still to bleed
Italia? Ah! to me such things, foreshown
With dim sepulchral light, bid me forget
In thine irreparable wrongs my own;
We can have but one country, and even yet
Thou'rt mine-my bones shall be within thy

breast,

My soul within thy language, which once set
With our old Roman sway in the wide West;
But I will make another tongue arise

As lofty and more sweet, in which exprest
The hero's ardor, or the lover's sighs,

Shall find alike such sounds for every theme
That every word, as brilliant as thy skies,
Shall realize a poet's proudest dream,

And make thee Europe's nightingale of song;
So that all present speech to thine shall seem
The note of meaner birds, and every tongue
Confess its barbarism, when compared with thine
This shalt thou owe to him thou didst so wrong,
Thy Tuscan Bard, the banish'd Ghibelline.
Wo! wo! the veil of coming centuries
Is rent,- -a thousand years which yet supine
Lie like the ocean waves ere winds arise,
Heaving in dark and sullen undulation,
Float from eternity into these eyes;

The storms yet sleep, the clouds still keep their
station,

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, shall feel the sword,
Thou, Italy! so fair that Paradise,
Revived in thee, blooms forth to man restored;
Ah! must the sons of Adam lose it twice?
Thou, Italy! whose ever golden fields,
Plough'd by the sunbeams solely, would suffice

For the world's granary; thou, whose sky heaven | Of an invader? is it they, or ye,

gilds

With brighter stars, and robes with deeper blue;
Thou, in whose pleasant places Summer builds
Her palace, in whose cradle Empire grew,

And form'd the Eternal City's ornaments
From spoils of kings whom freemen overthrew;
Birthplace of heroes, sanctuary of saints,

Where earthly first, then heavenly glory made
Her home; thou, all which fondest fancy paints,
And finds her prior vision but portray'd

In feeble colors, when the eye-from the Alp
Of horrid snow, and rock, and shaggy shade
Of desert-loving pine, whose emerald scalp

Nods to the storm-dilates and dotes o'er thee,
And wistfully implores, as 'twere, for help
To see thy sunny fields, my Italy,

Nearer and nearer yet, and dearer still
The more approach'd, and dearest were they free,
Thou-Thou must wither to each tyrant's will;
The Goth hath been,-the German, Frank and
Hun

Are yet to come,-and on the imperial hill
Ruin, already proud of the deeds done

By the old barbarians, there awaits the new, Throned on the Palatine, while lost and won Rome at her feet lies bleeding; and the hue

Of human sacrifice and Roman slaughter,
Troubles the clotted air, of late so blue,
And deepens into red the saffron water

Of Tiber, thick with dead; the helpless priest,
And still more helpless nor less holy daughter,
Vow'd to their God, have shrieking fled, and ceased
Their ministry; the nations take their prey,
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.

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 wo
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

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.

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

Nine moons shall rise o'er scenes like this and set; And flow again, I cannot all record,

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
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 sleeps 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

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 sounds 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 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
And melancholy gift high powers allow

Those who overthrew proud Xerxes, where yet lie To read the future; and if now my fire

The dead whose tomb Oblivion never knew,

Are the Alps weaker than Thermopylæ ?
Their passes more alluring to the view

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.

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And from thine ashes boundless spirits rise To give thee honor, 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;8 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 theeShall they be glorious, and thou still the same? Oh! more than these illustrious far shall be

The being and even yet he may be bornThe 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 vapors 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 wo 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 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

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-10 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 sonneteers

There shall be some who will not sing in vain, And he, their prince shall rank among my peers,11 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 farther age shall rise along

The banks of Po two greater still than he;
The world which smiled on him shall do taem

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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 favor, 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 Laureat-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 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 scattered? 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;

And when at length the winged wanderers stoop, Then is the prey-bird's triumph, then they share The spoil, o'erpower'd at length by one fell swoop. Yet some have been untouch'd who learn'd to bear, Some whom no power could ever force to droop, Who could resist themselves even, hardest care! And task most hopeless; but some such have been, And if my name among the number were, That destiny austere, and yet serene,

Were prouder than more dazzling fame unblest; The Alp's snow summit nearer heaven is seen, Than the volcano's fierce eruptive crest,

Whose splendor from the black abyss is flung, While the scorch'd mountain, from whose burning A temporary torturing flame is wrung,

Shines for a night of terror, then repels

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Its fire back to the hell from whence it sprung, The hell which in its entrails ever dwells.

CANTO IV.

MANY are poets who have never penn'd
Their inspiration, and perchance the best:
They felt, and loved, and died, but would not lend
Their thoughts to meaner beings; they compress'd
The god within them, and rejoin'd the stars
Unlaurell'd upon earth, but far more blest
Than those who are degarded by the jars

Of passion, and their frailties link'd to fame,
Conquerors of high renown, but full of scars.
Many are poets, but without the name,
For what is poesy but to create
From overfeeling good or ill; and aim
At an external life beyond our fate,

And be the new Prometheus of new men,
Bestowing fire from heaven, and then, too late,
Finding the pleasure given repaid with pain,
And vultures to the heart of the bestower,
Who having lavish'd his high gift in vain,
Lies chain'd to his lone rock by the sea-shore?
So be it: we can bear.-But thus all they
Whose intellect is an o'ermastering power
Which still recoils from its incumbering clay,
Or lightens it to spirit, whatsoe'er

The form which their creations may essay, Are bards; the kindled marble's bust may wear More poesy upon its speaking brow,

Than aught less than the Homeric page may bear; One noble stroke with a whole life may glow Or deify the canvass till it shine With beauty so surpassing all below, That they who kneel to idols so divine

Break no commandment, for high heaven is there Transfused, transfigurated: and the line

Of poesy, which peoples but the air

With thought and beings of our thought reflected,
Can do no more: then let the artist share
The palm, he shares the peril, and dejected,
Faints o'er the labor unapproved-Alas!
Despair and Genius are too oft connected.
Within the ages which before me pass,

Art shall resume and equal even the sway,
Which with Apelles and old Phidias,
She held in Hellas' unforgotten day.

Ye shall be taught by Ruin to revive
The Grecian forms at least from their decay,
And Roman souls at last again shall live

In Roman works wrought by Italian hands,
And temples, loftier than the old temples, give
New wonders to the world; and while still stands
The austere Pantheon, into heaven shall soar
A dome, 12 its image, while the base expands
Into a fame surpassing all before,

Such as all flesh shall flock to kneel in: ne'er Such sight hath been unfolded by a door As this, to which all nations shall repair, And lay their sins at this gate of heaven. And the bold Architect unto whose care The daring charge to raise it shall be given, Whom all arts shall acknowledge as their lord, Whether into the marble chaos driven His chisel bid the Hebrew, 13 at whose word Israel left Egypt, stop the waves in stone, Or hues of Hell be by his pencil pour'd Over the damn'd before the Judgment throne,14 Such as I saw them, such as all shall see, Or fanes be built of grandeur yet unknown, The stream of his great thoughts shall spring from

me, 15

The Ghibelline, who traversed the three realms Which form the empire of eternity.

Amidst the clash of swords, and clang of helms, The age which I anticipate, no less

Shall be the Age of Beauty, and while whelms Calamity the nations with distress,

The genius of my country shall arise, A Cedar towering o'er the Wilderness, Lovely in all its branches to all eyes,

Fragrant as fair, and recognized afar,
Wafting its native incense through the skies.
Sovereigns shall pause amidst their sport of war,
Wean'd for an hour from blood, to turn and gaze
On canvas or on stone; and they who mar
All beauty upon earth, compell'd to praise,
Shall feel the power of that which they destroy,
And Art's mistaken gratitude shall raise

To tyrants, who but take her for a toy,
Emblems and monuments, and prostitute
Her charms to pontiffs proud,16 who but employ
The man of genius as the meanest brute

To bear a burden, and to serve a need,
To sell his labors and his soul to boot.

Who toils for nations may be poor indeed,

But free; who sweats for monarch is no more Than the gilt chamberlain, who, clothed and fee'd,

Stands sleek and slavish, bowing at his door.
Oh, Power that rulest and inspirest! how
Is it that they on earth, whose earthly power
Is likest thine in heaven in outward show,
Least like to thee in attributes divine,
Tread on the universal necks that bow,
And then assure us that their right are thine?

And how is it that they, the sons of fame, Whose inspiration seems to them to shine From high, they whom the nations oftest name, Must pass their days in penury or pain,

Or step to grandeur through the paths of shame, And wear a deeper brand and gardier chain? Or if their destiny be born aloof

From lowliness, or tempted thence in vain, In their own souls sustain a harder proof,

The inner war of passions deep and fierce? Florence! when thy harsh sentence razed my roof, I loved thee; but the vengeance of my verse, The hate of injuries which every year Makes greater, and accumulates my curse, Shall live, outliving all thou holdest dear,

Thy pride, thy wealth, thy freedom, and even that, The most infernal of all evils here,

The sway of petty tyrants in a state;

For such sway is not limited to kings,
And demagogues yield to them but in date,
As swept off sooner; in all deadly things

[other,

Which make men hate themselves, and one anIn discord, cowardice, cruelty, all that springs From Death the Sin-born's incest with his mother, In rank oppression in its rudest shape,

The faction Chief is but the Sultan's brother, And the worst despot's far less human ape:

Florence! when this lone spirit, which so long
Yearn'd, as the captive toiling at escape,

To fly back to thee in despite of wrong,
An exile, saddest of all prisoners,

Who has the whole world for a dungeon strong,
Seas, mountains, and the horizon's verge for bars,
Which shut him from the sole small spot of earth
Where-whatsoe'er his fate-he still were hers,
His country's, and might die where he had birth-
Florence! when this lone spirit shall return
To kindred spirits, thou wilt feel my worth,
And seek to honor with an empty urn

The ashes thou shalt ne'er obtain-Alas! "What have I done to thee, my people?"17 Strn Are all thy dealings, but in this they pass The limits of man's common malice, for All that a citizen could be I was; Raised by thy will, all thine in peace or war, And for this thou hast warr'd with me.-'Tis done: may not overleap the eternal bar Built up between us, and will die alone, Beholding with the dark eye of a seer The evil days to gifted souls foreshown, Foretelling them to those who will not hear.

I

As in the old time, till the hour be come [a tear, When truth shall strike their eyes through many And make them own the Prophet in his tomb.

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4.

The dust she dooms to scatter. Page 511, line 103. "Ut si quis predictorum ullo tempore in fortiam dicti: communis pervenerit, tallis perveniens igne comburatur, sic quod moriatur.”

Second sentence of Florence against Dante, and the fourteen accused with him.-The Latin is worthy of the sentence.

5.

Where yet my boys are, and that fatal she.

Page 512, line 69.

This lady, whose name was Gemma, sprung from one of the most powerful Guelf families, named of Donati. Corso Donati was the principal adversary of the Ghibellines. She is described as being "Admodum morosa, ut de Xantippe Socratis philosophi conjuge scriptum esse legimus," according to Giannozzo Manetti. But Lionardo Aretino is scandalized with Boccace, in his life of Dante, for saying that literary men should not marry. "Qui il Boccaccio non ha pazienza, e dice, le mogli esser contrarie agli studj; e non si ricorda che Socrate il più nobile filosofo che mai fosse, ebbe moglie e figliuoli e uffici della Repubblica nella sua Città; e Aristotele che, &c., &c., ebbe due mogli in varj tempi, ed ebbe figliuoli, e ricchezze assai.-E Marcc

Cader tra' buoni è pur di lode degno." Sonnet of Dante, In which he represents Right, Generosity, and Temperance as banished from among men, and seeking refuge from Love, who inhabits his bosom.

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