Had stamp'd her image in me, and even so, I can repeople with the past-and of Within the web of my existence, some From thee, fair Venice! have their colours caught: There are some feelings Time cannot benumb, Nor Torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb. Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind, But feel the shock renew'd, nor can efface The blight and blackening which it leaves behind, Which out of things familiar, undesign'd, When least we deem of such, calls up to view The spectres whom no exorcism can bind, The cold-the changed-perchance the dead -anew, The mourn'd, the loved, the lost-too many! -yet how few! Wearied with the contemplation of scenes so humiliating to the eye of man, the Poet and the Pilgrim, for they are now confessedly the same, rejoices to escape into the pure solitude of nature, and to sooth his mind with the survey of less transitory beauties. At Arqua, the little hamlet where Petrarch spent the last years of his life, and where his house, chair, &c. are still shewn to travellers, exactly as the relics of Shakspeare are at Stratford-upon-Avon, Byron is filled with admiration of the modest retreat selected by this illustrious poet, and enters fully, for a moment, into the quiet and self-subdued spirit of one with whom, in general, he appears to have very little in common. 32. And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt 33. Developing the mountains, leaves, and flowers, And shining in the brawling brook, where-by, The description of an Italian even ing on the banks of the Bretna, is one of the most beautiful passages in the poem. The poetry of Nature, which he has learned from Wordsworth, seems to be heightened and improved in his hands, by the unseen influence of the more glorious scenes and climates to which he has transferred it. "A single star is at her side, and reigns With her o'er half the lovely heaven; but still Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains Roll'd o'er the peak of the far Rhætian hill, As Day and Night contending were, until Nature reclaim'd her order :-gently flows The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil The odorous purple of a new-born rose, Which streams upon her stream, and glass'd within it glows, 29. nities of petty tyrants, is well fitted to call up that mist of morbid contempt through which Lord Byron delights to look upon the frail pageants of external grandeur. At Florence he seems to have thought of little except the statues in the gallery, and the tombs in the church of Santa Croce. This, we think, is the first time that he has ever come directly upon the subject of art; and although he is careful to tell us how much he prefers a single green valley, or roaring cataract, and all the masterpieces of the chisel and the pencil, still his soul is so conversant with ideal creations of loveliness, majesty, and terror, that he speaks of the Venus, the Apollo, and the Laocoon, in a style which our readers will easily acknowledge to be far superior to any thing which the admiration of art had before embodied in English Poetry. There is something to us inexpressibly touching in the transition from this splendid enthusiasm to the mournful shades of the Florentine cemetry. Never was more deep mean Fill'd with the face of heaven, which, from ing conveyed in one line than in the afar, eighth of this stanza. The struggle; vain, against the coiling strain And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp, The old man's clench; the long envenomed chain Rivets the living links,-the enormous asp Or view the Lord of the unerring bow, With an immortal's vengeance; in his eye But in his delicate form-a dream of Love, A ray of immortality-and stood, Which reigns when mountains tremble, and the birds Plunge in the clouds for refuge, and withdraw From their down-toppling nests; and bel, lowing herds Stumble o'er heaving plains, and man's dread hath no words. 65. Far other scene is Thrasimene now; A little rill of scanty stream and bed- And Sanguinetto tells ye where the dead Made the earth wet, and turn'd the unwilling waters red. Venice, Lombardy, and Tuscany, rich as they are in relics of fallen grandeur and inimitable art, and still more so in scenes where nature dis plays herself both in beauty and sublimity, are, after all, only the avenues to the main attraction of the poet and the poem. Even Greece, with all her natural graces, and all her heroic recollections, wants that majestic charm of unapproached greatness, which binds the heart of every profound thinker to the contemplation of the skeleton of Rome, It was here that the nature of man arrayed itself in greatness so terrific, that it almost merited the name of disguise. It was here that imagination and passion, disdaining all individual hopes, and feelings, and exactions, concentrated themselves with unswerving pertinacity in the idea of country. A Roman thought himself great and noble, not because he was himself, not for any thing that himself had done or could do, but simply because his birth and home were in the eternal city, All other men are vain. The Roman only was proud. He looked upon himself as a being animated with the inspirations of a nobler nature than is given to other men. Even the Greek, with all his philosophy, poetry, art, and eloquence, was regarded as an ingenious animal of a lower species, Nay, the Greeks, rich as their accomfedged their inferiority, whenever they plishments were, seem to have acknowwere brought into actual contact either with the bodies or the spirits of these "Men of Iron." • We had lately sent to us a translation of an Elegy, by William Augustus Schle, Whose agonies are evils of a day Alas! the lofty city! and alas! A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. The trebly hundred triumphs! and the day 79. The Niobe of nations! there she stands, Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe; An empty urn within her withered hands, Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago; The Scipio's tomb contains no ashes now; The very sepulchres lie tenantless Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow, Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness? Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress! 80. 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? gel, from which our correspondent supposes that Lord Byron has borrowed not a little of the spirit, and even of the expressions, of the Fourth Canto. We cannot, we must confess, observe any thing more than such coincidences, as might very well be expected from two great poets contemplating the same scene. The opening of the German poem appears to us to be very striking; but the whole is pitched in an elegiac key. Lord Byron handles the same topics with the deeper power of a tragedian. Trust not the smiling welcome Rome can give, When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass Her resurrection; all beside-decay. wild teat, Scorch'd by the Roman Jove's etherial dart, And thy limbs black with lightning-dost thou yet Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget? 89. Thou dost ;-but all thy foster-babes are dead The men of iron; and the world hath rear'd At apish distance; but as yet none have, The fool of false dominion-and a kind And came-and saw-and conquer'd! But the man Who would have tamed his eagles down to flee, 92. And would be all or nothing-nor could wait For the sure grave to level him; few years Had fix'd him with the Cæsars in his fate, On whom we tread: For this the conqueror rears The arch of triumph! and for this the tears And blood of earth flow on as they have flowed, An universal deluge, which appears Egeria! sweet creation of some heart 116. The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkle Prisoned in marble, bubbling from the base Fantastically tangled; the green hills Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass; Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class, Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes, Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass; The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes, Kiss'd by the breath of heaven, seems coloured by its skies. |