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

Those who o'erthrew proud Xerxes, where yet lie
The dead whose tomb Oblivion never knew,
Are the Alps weaker than Thermopyla?
Their passes more alluring to the view
Of an invader? is it they, or ye,

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 woe
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.

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 martyr'd nation's gore, Will not in vain arise to where belongs Omnipotence and mercy evermore: Like to a harp-string 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 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 pour'd 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 A softer glimpse; some stars shine through thy night,

And many meteors, and above thy tomb

Leans sculptured Beauty, which Death cannot

blight:

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 learn'd, 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 ;+

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 I 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 vapours 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 woe Some voices shall be heard, and earth shall listen ;

Alexander of Parma, Spinola, Pescara, Eugene of Savoy, Montecucco.

† Columbus, Americus Vespucius, Sebastian Cabot.

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 gonefThe 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, t 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 them

wrong

Till they are ashes, and repose with me.

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

A verse from the Greek tragedians, with which Pompey took leave of Cornelia on entering the boat in which he was slain.

†The verse and sentiment are taken from Homer. Petrarch.

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 favour, 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 Laureate-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 two 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 turned 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 scatter'd? 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,

Fragrant as fair, and recognised afar, Wafting its nature 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, who but employ The man of genius as the meanest brute

To bear a burthen, and to serve a need, To sell his labours, and his soul to boot. Who toils for nations may be poor indeed,

But free; who sweats for monarchs 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 rights 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 gaudier 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 eyen 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,
Which make men hate themselves, and one an
other,

In 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 honour with an empty urn

The ashes thou shalt ne'er obtain-Alas! 'What have I done to thee, my people?'* Stern 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 :

I 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.

As in the old time, till the hour be come
When truth shall strike their eyes through many

a tear,

And make them own the Prophet in his tomb.