1817. ADVERTISEMENT. errara, in the Library, are preserved the original MSS. of Tasso's Gierusalemme and of Guarini's Fido, with letters of Tasso, one from Titian to Ariosto, and the inkstand and chair, the tomb and use, of the latter. But as misfortune has a greater interest for posterity, and little or none for the porary, the cell where Tasso was confined in the hospital of St. Anna attracts a more fixed attention te residence or the monument of Ariosto-at least it had this effect on me. There are two inscriptions, the outer gate, the second over the cell itself, inviting unnecessarily the wonder and the indignation spectator. Ferrara is much decayed and depopulated: the castle still exists entire; and I saw the where Parisina and Hugo were beheaded, according to the annal of Gibbon. I. G years!-It tries the thrilling frame to bear, eagle-spirit of a child of Song g years of outrage, calumny, and wrong; uted madness, prison'd solitude, the mind's canker in its savage mood, en the impatient thirst of light and air hes the heart; and the abhorred grate, ring the sunbeams with its hideous shade, ks through the throbbing eyeball to the brain, a hot sense of heaviness and pain; bare, at once, Captivity display'd ds scoffing through the never-open'd gate, ch nothing through its bars admits, save day, tasteless food, which I have eat alone its unsocial bitterness is gone; I can banquet like a beast of prey, en and lonely, couching in the cave ch is my lair, and-it may be my grave. This hath somewhat worn me, and may wear, must be borne. I stoop not to despair; I have battled with mine agony, made me wings wherewith to overfly narrow circus of my dungeon wall, freed the Holy Sepulchre from thrall; revell'd among men and things divine, pour'd my spirit over Palestine onour of the sacred war for Him, God who was on earth and is in heaven, he has strengthen'd me in heart and limb. through this sufferance I might be forgiven, ve employ'd my penance to record -Salem's shrine was won, and how adored. II. this is o'er-my pleasant task is done:Eong-sustaining friend of many years! do blot thy final page with tears, w that my sorrows have wrung from me none. hou, my young creation! my soul's child! ch ever playing round me came and smiled, woo'd me from myself with thy sweet sight, u too art gone-and so is my delight: therefore do I weep and inly bleed this last bruise upon a broken reed. Thou too art ended-what is left me now? Of my own spirit shall be found resource. I have not sunk, for I had no remorse, Nor cause for such: they call'd me mad-and why? I was indeed delirious in my heart I knew my fault, and feel my punishment My heart can multiply thine image still; The wretched are the faithful; 'tis their fate And ours is fathomless, and hath no shore, III Above me, hark! the long and maniac cry With these and with their victims am I class'd, 'Mid sounds and sights like these long years have pass'd; 'Mid sights and sounds like these my life may close: So let it be for then I shall repose. IV I have been patient-let me be so yet; Feel I not wroth with those who bade me dwell Where laughter is not mirth, nor thought the mind, Nor words a language, nor even men mankind; Which echoes Madness in her babbling moods; While all can hear, none heed his neighbour's call None! save that One, the veriest wretch of all, Branding my thoughts as things to shun and fear? V. Look on a love which knows not to despair, But all unquench'd is still my better part, Dwelling deep in my shut and silent heart, As dwells the gather'd lightning in its cloud, Encompass'd with its dark and rolling shroud, Till struck-forth flies the all-ethereal dart! And thus at the collision of thy name The vivid thought still flashes through my frame, And for a moment all things as they were Flit by me they are gone-I am the same. And yet my love without ambition grew; I knew thy state, my station, and I knew A Princess was no love-mate for a bard: I told it not, I breathed it not; it was Sufficient to itself, its own reward: And if my eyes reveal'd it, they, alas, Were punished by the silentness of thine, And yet I did not venture to repine. Thou wert to me a crystal girded shrine. Worshipp'd at holy distance, and around Hallow'd and meekly kiss'd the saintly ground: Not for thou wert a princess, but that Love Had robed thee with a glory, and array'd Thy lineaments in beauty that dismay'dOh! not dismay'd-but awed, like One above; And in that sweet severity there was A something which all softness did surpass; I know not how-thy genius master'd mine My star stood still before thee: if it were Presumptuous thus to love without design, That sad fatality hath cost me dear; But thou art dearest still, and I should be VI. It is no marvel-from my very birth Idols, and out of wild and lonely flowers. I found the thing I sought-and that was thee; VII. I loved all Solitude, but little thought VIII. Yet do I feel at times my mind decline, I thought mine enemies had been but Man, But spirits may be leagued with them; all Earth Like steel in tempering fire?-because I loved? IX. I once was quick in feeling-that is o'er: The ducal chiefs within thee, shalt fall down, A poet's wreath shall be thy only crown- While strangers wonder o'er thy unpeopled walls! This, this, shall be a consecrated spot! But Theu-when all that Birth and Beauty throws To be entwined for ever-but too late! LADY! if for the cold and cloudy clime, Where I was born, but where I would not die, Of the great Poet-Sire of Italy I dare to build the imitative rhyme, Harsh Runic copy of the South's sublime, Spakest; and for thee to speak and be obey'd Are one; but only in the sunny South Such sounds are utter'd, and such charms display'd, So sweet a language from so fair a mouth Ah! to what effort would it not persuade RAVENNA, Fuste 21, 1819. PREFACE. course of a visit to the city of Ravenna in the summer of 1819, it was suggested to the author that, composed something on the subject of Tasso's confinement, he should do the same on Dante's exile mb of the poet forming one of the principal objects of interest in that city, both to the native ranger. 'On this hint I spake,' and the result has been the following four cantos, in terza rima, now offered to the reader. If they are understood and approved, it is my purpose to continue the poem, in various other cantos, to its natural conclusion in the present age. The reader is requested to suppose that Dante addresses him in the interval between the conclusion of the Divina Commedia and his death, and shortly before the latter event, foretelling the fortunes of Italy in general in the ensuing centuries. In adopting this plan I have had in my mind the Cassandra of Lycophron, and the Prophecy of Nereus by Horace, as well as the Prophecies of Holy Writ. The measure adopted is the terza rima of Dante, which I am not aware to have seen hitherto tried in our language, except it may be by Mr. Hayley, of whose translation I never saw but one extract, quoted in the notes to Caliph Vathek; so that-if I do not err-this poem may be considered as a metrical experiment. The cantos are short, and about the same length of those of the poet, whose name I have borrowed, and most probably taken in vain. Amongst the inconveniences of authors in the present day, it is difficult for any who have a name, good or bad, to escape translation. I have had the fortune to see the fourth canto of 'Childe Harold' translated into Italian versi sciolti,—that is, a poem written in the Spenserean stanza into blank verse, without regard to the natura! divisions of the stanza or of the sense. If the present poem, being on a national topic, should chance to undergo the same fate, I would request the Italian reader to remember that when I have failed in the imitation of his great 'Padre Alighier,' I have failed in imitating that which all study and few understand, since to this very day it is not yet settled what was the meaning of the allegory in the first canto of the Inferno, unless Count Marchetti's ingenious and probable conjecture may be considered as having decided the question. He may also pardon my failure the more, as I am not quite sure that he would be pleased with my success, since the Italians, with a pardonable nationality, are particularly jealous of all that is left them as a nation, their literature; and in the present bitterness of the classic and romantic war, are but ill disposed to permit a foreigner even to approve or imitate them, without finding some fault with his ultramontane pre sumption. I can easily enter into all this, knowing what would be thought in England of an Italian imitator of Milton, or if a translation of Monti, or Pindemonte, or Arici, should be held up to the rising generation as a model for their future poetical essays. But I perceive that I am deviating into an address to the Italian reader, when my business is with the English one; and be they few or many, I must take my leave of both. CANTO THE FIRST. ONCE more in man's frail world! which I had left My earthly sorrows, and to God's own skies From star to star to reach the almighty throne. That nought on earth could more my bosom move, The reader is requested to adopt the Italian pronunciation of Beatrice, sounding all the syllables. Che sol per le belle opre Che fanno in Cielo il sole e l' altre stelle Since my tenth sun gave summer to my sight By tyrannous faction, and the brawling crowd, Unto my native soil,-they have not yet And the night cometh; I am old in days, The world hath left me, what it found me, pure, I sought it not by any baser lure; Man wrongs, and Time avenges, and my name Dentro di lui, si crede il Paradiso, Pensar ben déi ch' ogni terren' piacere. Who dabble in the pettiness of fame, And make men's fickle breath the wind that blows I would have had my Florence great and free; * My voice; but as the adder, deaf and fierce. Against the breast that cherish'd thee was stirr'd Thy venom, and my state thou didst amerce, And doom this body forfeit to the fire. Alas! how bitter is his country's curse To him who, for that country would expire, But did not merit to expire by her, And loves her, loves her even in her ire ! The day may come when she will cease to err, The day may come she would be proud to have The dust she dooms to scatter, and transfer Of him, whom she denied a home, the grave. But this shall not be granted; let my dust Lie where it falls; nor shall the soil which gave Me breath, but in her sudden fury thrust Me forth to breathe elsewhere, so reassume My indignant bones, because her angry gust 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 armed 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 These things are not made for forgetfulness, The wound, too deep the wrong, and the distress Though, like old Marius from Minturnæ's marsh 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 woe, 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 My many wrongs, and thine almighty rod And live was never granted until now, The sense of earth and earthly things come back, Did not my verse embalm full many an act In life, to wear their hearts out, and consume The name of him-who now is but a name, To live in narrow ways with little men, A wanderer, while even wolves can find a den, Without the power that makes them bear a crown- |