Yet was I born where men are proud to be, Perhaps I loved it well: and should I lay My name from out the temple where the dead The thorns which I have reaped are of the tree I planted, they have torn me, and I bleed: I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed. The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord; And, annual marriage now no more renewed, St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns- Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe. Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass, But is not Doria's menace come to pass? 6 Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done In youth she was all glory,—a new Tyre,— Statues of glass-all shiver`d-the long file Of her dead Doges are declined to dust; But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust; Their scepter broken, and their sword in rust, Have yielded to the stranger: empty halls, Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must Too oft remind her who and what enthralls, Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls. When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse, See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car Of the o'ermastered victor stops, the reins Fall from his hands-his idle scimitar Starts from its belt-he rends his captive's chains, And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains. Thus, Venice, if no stronger claim were thine, Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot, Thy choral memory of the bard divine, Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot Is shameful to the nations,—most of all, Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall. I loved her from by boyhood-She to me Was as a fairy city of the heart, Rising like water columns from the sea, Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart; And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakspeare's art can repeople with the past-and of The present there is still for eye and thought, And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought; And of the happiest moments which were wrought Within the web of my existence, some From thee, fair Venice! have their colours caught: Nor torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb. But from their nature will the tannen grow Of eddying storms; yet springs the trunk and mocks And grew a giant tree;--the mind may grow the same. Existence may be borne, and the deep root Of life and sufferance make its firm abode All suffering doth destroy, or is destroy'd, Even by the sufferer; and, in each event, Ends. Some, with hope replenish'd and rebuoy'd, Return to whence they came--with like intent, And weave their web again; some, bow'd and bent, Wax gray and ghastly, withering ere their time, And perish with the reed on which they leant: Some seek devotion, toil, war, good or crime, According as their souls were form'd to sink or climb. But ever and anon of griefs subdued There comes a token like a scorpion's sting, And slight withal may be the things which bring Back on the heart the weight which it would fling A tone of music,-summer's eve-or spring, A flower-the wind-the Ocean-which shall wound, Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound; And how and why we know not, nor can trace 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 But my soul wanders; I demand it back A ruin amidst ruins; there to track Fall'n states and buried greatness, o'er a land The master-mould of Nature's heavenly hand, The commonwealth of kings, the men of Rome! Thou art the garden of the world, the home, The moon is up, and yet it is not night— A single star is at her side, and reigns As Day and night contending were, until The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil Which streams upon her stream, and glass'd within it glows. Fill'd with the face of heaven, which, from afar Comes down upon the waters: all its hues, Their magical variety diffuse: And now they change; a paler shadow strews Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues The last still loveliest, till-'tis gone and all is gray. ROME. OH Rome! my country! city of the soul! Come and see world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. The Niobe of nations! there she stands, Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow, Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness ? Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress. The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire, 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 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? |