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 scem, hath its morality. Af from society we learn to live, 'Tis solitude should teach us how to die; It hath no flatterers; vanity can give Peace to Torquato's injured shade! 'twas his No hilow aid; alone-man with his God must strive: Condensed their scatter'd rays, they would not form 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. 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, Which have relapsed to chaos :-here repose The starry Galileo, with his woes; LX. 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 And Santa Croce wants their mighty dust, head. LXI. There be more things to greet the heart and eyes In Arno's dome of Art's most princely shrine, Where Sculpture with her rainbow sister vies; There be more marvels yet-but not for mind; For I have been accustom'd to entwine My thoughts with Nature rather in the fields, Than Art in galleries: though a work divine Calls for my spirit's homage, yet it yields Less than it feels, because the weapon which it wields LXII. Is of another temper, and I roam By Thrasimene's lake, in the defiles Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home, For there the Carthaginian's warlike wiles Come back before me, as his skill beguiles The host between the mountains and the shore. Where Courage falls in her despairing files, And torrents, swoln to rivers with their gore, Reek through the sultry plain, with legions scatter'd o'er LXIII. Like to a forest fell'd by mountain winds; And such the storm of battle on this day, And such the frenzy, whose convulsion blinds To all save carnage, that, beneath the fray, An earthquake reel'd unheedingly away! 35 None felt stern Nature rocking at his feet, And yawning forth a grave for those who lay Upon their bucklers for a winding sheet; Such is the absorbing hate when warring nations meet! 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; A name of blood from that day's sanguine rain. While Florence vainly begs her banish'd dead and Made the earth wet, and turn'd the unwilling water |