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 XXXVI. And Tasso is their glory and their shame. The insulted mind he sought to quench, and blend With the surrounding maniacs, in the hell Where he had plunged it. Glory without end Scatter'd 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 scornAlfonso! 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! form'd 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 furrow'd brow, Which emanated then, and dazzles now, In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire, And Boileau, whose rash envy could allow 18 [lyre, No strain which shamed his country's creaking That whetstone of the teeth-monotony in wire! XXXIX. Peace to Torquato's injured shade! 'twas his And not the whole combined and countiess throng No hollow aid; alone-man with his God must strive: Condensed their scatter'd rays, they would not form XLII. Italia! oh Italia! thou who hast 22 The fatal gift of beauty, which became A funeral dower of present woes and past, On thy sweet brow is sorrow plough'd 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 might'st thou more appal; or, less desired, Quaff blood and water; nor the stranger's sword 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, redeem'd to a new morn XLIX. There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills Of heaven is half undrawn; within the pale Victor or vanquish'd, thou the slave of friend or foe. Envy the innate flesh which such a soul could mould: Wrecks of another world, whose ashes still are warm. Into thy statue's form, and look like gods below. LIV. LX. In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie 27 Ashes which make it holier, dust which is Though there were nothing save the past, and this, The particle of those sublimities Which have relapsed to chaos :—here repose The starry Galileo, with his woes; What is her pyramid of precious stones ? 34 Here Machiavelli's earth return'd to whence it rose.29 Than ever paced the slab which paves the princely head. LXI. There be more things to greet the heart and eyes Is of another temper, and I roam LXIII. Like to a forest fell'd by mountain winds; LXIV. The Earth to them was as a rolling bark Stumbling o'er heaving plains, and man's dread hath Far other scene is Thrasimene now; And Santa Croce wants their mighty dust, A name of blood from that day's sanguine rain The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire, Have dealt upon the seven-hill'd city's pride; She saw her glories star by star expire, And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride, Where the car climb'd 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 his 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 clearWhen but some false mirage of ruin rises near. LXXXII. Alas! the lofty city! and alas ! The trebly hundred triumphs! 42 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. Oh, thou, whose chariot roll'd on Fortune's wheel,43 Triumphant Sylla! Thou, who didst subduc 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 |