CANTO I

ONCE more in man's frail world! which I had left

So long that 'twas forgotten; and I feel The weight of clay again,-too soon bereft Of the immortal vision which could heal My earthly sorrows, and to God's own skies Lift me from that deep gulf without repeal, Where late my ears rung with the damned cries

Of souls in hopeless bale; and from that place

Of lesser torment, whence men may arise Pure from the fire to join the angelic race; Midst whom my own bright Beatrice bless'd

My spirit with her light; and to the base Of the Eternal Triad! first, last, best,

Mysterious, three, sole, infinite,great God! Soul universal! led the mortal guest, Unblasted by the glory, though he trod From star to star to reach the almighty throne.

Oh Beatrice! whose sweet limbs the sod So long hath press'd, and the cold marblestone,

Thou sole pure scraph of my earliest love, Love so ineffable, and so alone, That nought on earth could more my bosom

move,

And meeting thee in heaven was but to meet

That without which my soul, like the arkless dove, Had wander'd still in search of, nor her feet Relieved her wing till found; without thy light

My Paradise had still been incomplete. Since my tenth sun gave summer to my sight Thou wert my life, the essence of my thought,

Loved ere I knew the name of love, and bright Still in these dim old eyes, now overwrought With the world's war, and years, and banishment,

And tears for thee,by other woes untaught; For mine is not a nature to be bent

By tyrannous faction, and the brawling crowd;

And though the long, long conflict hath been spent In vain, and never more,save when the cloud, Which overhangs the Apennine, my mind's eye Pierces to fancy Florence, once so proud Of me, can I return, though but to die, Unto my native soil, they have not yet Quench'd the old exile's spirit, stern and high.

But the sun, though not overcast, must set, And the night cometh; I am old in days, And deeds, and contemplation, and have

met

May form a monument not all obscure, Though such was not my ambition's end or aim,

To add to the vain-glorious list of those Who dabble in the pettiness of fame, And make men's fickle breath the wind that blows Their sail, and deem it glory to be class'd With conquerors, and Virtue's other foes, In bloody chronicles of ages past.

I would have had my Florence great and free:

Oh Florence! Florence! unto me thou wast Like that Jerusalem which the Almighty He Wept over: "but thou wouldst not;" as the bird Gathers its young, I would have gather'd

thee Beneath a parent-pinion, hadst thou heard 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

These things are not made for forgetful

ness

Florence shall be forgotten first; too raw The wound, too deep the wrong, and the distress

Of such endurance too prolong'd, to make My pardon greater, her injustice less, Though late repented; yet-yet for her sake I feel some fonder yearnings, and for thine, My own Beatrice, I would hardly take Vengeance upon the land which once was mine,

And still is hallow'd by thy dust's return, Which would protect the murderess like a shrine,

And save ten thousand foes by thy sole urn. 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,

them go!

let

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 Ate range O'er humbled heads and sever'd necksGreat God!

Take these thoughts from me -to thy hands I yield My many wrongs, and thine almighty rod Will fall on those who smote me,-be my shield!

As thou hast been in peril, and in pain, In turbulent cities, and the tented fieldIn toil, and many troubles borne in vain

For Florence.-I appeal from her to Thee! Thee, whom I late saw in thy loftiest reign, Even in that glorious vision, which to see And live was never granted until now, And yet thou hast permitted this to me. Alas! with what a weight upon my brow The sense of earth and earthly things come back,

Corrosive passions, feelings dull and low, The heart's quick throb upon the mental rack,

Long day,and dreary night; the retrospect Of half a century bloody and black, And the frail few years I may yet expect

Hoary and hopeless, but less hard to bear, For I have been too long and deeply wreck'd

On the lone rock of desolate Despair

To lift my eyes more to the passing sail Which shuns that reef so horrible and bare;

Nor raise my voice for who would heed my wail? I am not of this people, nor this age, And yet my harpings will unfold a tale Which shall preserve these times when not a page

Of their perturbed annals could attract An eye to gaze upon their civil rage, Did not my verse embalm full many an act Worthless as they who wrought it: 'tis the doom

Of spirits of my order to be rack'd In life,to wear their hearts out, and consume Their days in endless strife,and die alone; Then future thousands crowd around their tomb,

And pilgrims come from climes where they have known The name of him-who now is but a name, And wasting homage o'er the sullen stone Spread his- by him unheard, unheeded— fame;

+

And mine at least hath cost me dear: to die Is nothing; but to wither thus-to tame My mind down from its own infinity— To live in narrow ways with little men, A common sight to every common eye, A wanderer, while even wolves can find a den, Ripp'd from all kindred, from all home, all things That make communion sweet, and soften pain— To feel me in the solitude of kings Without the power that makes them bear a crownTo envy every dove his nest and wings Which waft him where the Apennine looks down

On Arno, till he perches, it may be, Within my all-inexorable town, Where yet my boys are, and that fatal she, Their mother, the cold partner who hath brought

Destruction for a dowry-this to see And feel, and know without repair, hath taught

A bitter lesson; but it leaves me free: I have not vilely found, nor basely songht,They made an Exile—not a slave of me.

CANTO II.

THE Spirit of the fervent days of Old, When words were things that came to pass, and thought Flash'd o'er the future, bidding men behold

brought

Forth from the abyss of time which is to be, The chaos of events, where lie halfwrought

Shapes that must undergo mortality; What the great Scers of Israel wore within,

That spirit was on them, and is on me,
And if, Cassandra-like, amidst the din
Of conflict none will hear or hearing heed
This voice from out the Wilderness,
the sin

Be theirs, and my own feelings be my meed,
The only guerdon I have ever known.
Hast thou not bled? and hast thou still
to bleed,
Italia? Ah! to me such things, foreshown
With dim sepulchral light, bid me forget
In thine irreparable wrongs my own;
We can have but one country, and even yet
Thou'rt mine-my bones shall be within
thy breast,

My soul within thy language, which

once set

With our old Roman sway in the wide West; But I will make another tongue arise As lofty and more sweet, in which exprest The hero's ardour, or the lover's sighs, Shall find alike such sounds for every theme

That every word, as brilliant as thy skies, Shall realise a poet's proudest dream, And make thee Europe's nightingale of

song;

So that all present speech to thine shall

seem

The note of meaner birds, and every tongue | Confess its barbarism when compared with thine.

This shalt thou owe to him thou didst 80 wrong, Thy Tuscan Bard, the banish'd Ghibelline. Woe! woe! the veil of coming centuries Is rent,- a thousand years which yet supine Lie like the ocean-waves ere winds arise, Heaving in dark and sullen undulation, Float from eternity into these eyes; The storms yet sleep, the clouds still keep their station,

The unborn earthquake yet is in the womb, The bloody chaos yet expects creation, But all things are disposing for thy doom; The elements await but for the word, "Let there be darkness!" and thou growst a tomb!

Yes! thou, so beautiful, shalt feel the sword, Thou, Italy! so fair that Paradise, Revived in thee, blooms forth to man restored:

Ah! must the sons of Adam lose it twice? Thou Italy! whose ever golden fields, Plough'd by the sunbeams solely, would suffice

With brighter stars, and robes with deeper blue;

Thou, in whose pleasant places Summer builds

Her palace, in whose cradle Empire grew, And form'd the Eternal City's ornaments From spoils of kings whom freemen overthrew ;

Birthplace of heroes, sanctuary of saints, Where earthly first, then heavenly glory made

Her home; thou, all which fondest fancy paints,

And finds her prior vision but portray'd In feeble colours, when the eye-from the Alp

Of horrid snow,and rock and shaggy shade Of desert-loving pine, whose emerald scalp Nods to the storm-dilates and dotes o'er thee, And wistfully implores, as 'twere, for help To see thy sunny fields, my Italy,

Nearer and nearer yet, and dearer still The more approach'd, and dearest were they free;Thou-Thou must wither to each tyrant's will:

The Goth hath been, the German, Frank, and Hun

Are yet to come,—and on the imperial hill Ruin, already proud of the deeds done By the old barbarians, there awaits the new,

Throned on the Palatine, while lost and

prey,

Iberian, Almain, Lombard, and the beast And bird, wolf, vulture, more humane than they

Are; these but gorge the flesh and lap the gore Of the departed, and then go their way; But those, the human savages, explore All paths of torture, and insatiate yet, With Ugolino-hunger prowl for more. Nine moons shall rise o'er scenes like this and set;

The chiefless ariny of the dead, which late

Beneath the traitor Prince's banner met, Hath left its leader's ashes at the gate;

Had but the royal Rebel lived, perchance

thy fate.

Oh! Rome, the spoiler or the spoil of France, From Brennus to the Bourbon,never, never Shall foreign standard to thy walls advance

But Tiber shall become a mournful river. Oh! when the strangers pass the Alps and Po, Crush them ye rocks! floods, whelm them, and for ever!

Why sleep the idle avalanches so,

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 overthrew 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 thec copes;

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 harpstring 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 wate,

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! more than these illustrious far shall be The being—and even yet he may be born— The 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;

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 gone –
The 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!

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 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!