Florence dooms me but death or banish- Ferrara him a pittance and a cell, 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 unrol 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 turn'd 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 And die, or are degraded, for the mind The spoil, o'erpower'd at length by one fell swoop. Yet some have been untouch'd, who learn'd to bear, Some whom no power could ever force to droop, Who could resist themselves even, hardest care, And task most hopeless! but some such have been, And if my name amongst the number were That destiny austere, and yet serene, Were prouder than more dazzling fame unblest; The Alp's snow-summit nearer heaven is seen Than the volcano's fierce eruptive crest, Whose splendour from the black abyss is flung, While the scorch'd mountain, from whose burning breast A temporary torturing flame is wrung, CANTO IV. MANY are poets who have never penn'd Their inspiration, and perchance the best: They felt, and loved, and died, but would not lend Their thoughts to meaner beings; they compress'd The god within them, and rejoin'd the stars Unlaurell'd upon earth, but far more blest Than those who are degraded by the jars Of passion, and their frailties link'd to fame, Conquerors of high renown, but full of scars. Many are poets but without the name, And be the new Prometheus of new men, Bestowing fire from heaven, and then too late, Finding the pleasure given repaid with pain, And vultures to the heart of the bestower, Who,having lavish'd his high gift in vain, Lies chain'd to his lone rock by the seashore? So be it: we can bear.--But thus all they, Whose intellect is an o'ermastering power Which still recoils from its encumbering clay Or lightens it to spirit, whatsoe'er The form which their creations may essay, Are bards; the kindled marble's bust may wear More poesy upon its speaking brow Than aught less than the Homeric page may bear; One noble stroke with a whole life may glow, Or deify the canvas till it shine With beauty so surpassing all below, That they who kneel to idols so divine Break no commandment, for high heaven is there Transfused, transfigurated: and the line Of poesy which peoples but the air With thought and beings of our thought reflected, Can do no more: then let the artist share The palm, he shares the peril, and dejected Faints o'er the labour unapproved – Alas! Despair and Genins are too oft connected. Within the ages which before me pass, Art shall resume and equal even the sway Which with Apelles and old Phidias She held in Hellas' unforgotten day. Ye shall be taught by Ruin to revive The Grecian forms at least from their decay, And Roman souls at last again shall live In Roman works wrought by Italian hands, And temples, loftier than the old temples, give New wonders to the world; and while still stands The austere Pantheon, into heaven shall soar A dome, its image, while the base expands Into a fane surpassing all before, Such as all flesh shall flock to kneel in: ne'er Such sight hath been unfolded by a door As this, to which all nations shall repair And lay their sins at this huge gate of heaven. And the bold architect unto whose care The daring charge to raise it shall be given, Whom all arts shall acknowledge as their lord, Whether into the marble-chaos driven His chisel bid the Hebrew, at whose word Israel left Egypt, stop the waves in stone, Or hues of hell be by his pencil pour'd Over the damn'd before theJudgment-throne, Such as I saw them, such as all shall see, Or fanes be built of grandeur yet unknown, The stream of his great thoughts shall spring from me, The Ghibelline, who traversed the three realms Which form the empire of eternity. Amidst the clash of swords and clang of helms, The age which I anticipate, no less Shall be the Age of Beauty, and while whelms Calamity the nations with distress, The genius of my country shall arise, A Cedar towering o'er the Wilderness, Lovely in all its branches to all eyes, Fragrant as fair, and recognized afar, Wafting its native 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 ralse 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, 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 even that, I 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 another, 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 | Are all thy dealings, but in this they pass 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 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. THE DRE A M. Oun life is twofold; Sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world, And a wide realm of wild reality; And dreams in their development have breath, And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy; They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts They take a weight from off our waking toils, speak But a most living landscape, and the wave Of woods and corn-fields, and the abodes of men Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge The maid was on the eve of womanhood; The boy had fewer summers, but his heart Like sibyls of the future; they have power-Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye The tyranny of pleasure and of pain; They make us what we were not- what they will, And shake us with the vision that's gone by, The dread of vanish'd shadows-Are they so? Is not the past all shadow? What are they? Creation of the mind?-The mind can make Substance, and people planets of its own With beings brighter than have been, and give A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh. I would recal a vision which I dream'd Perchance in sleep-for in itself a thought, A slumbering thought, is capable of years, And curdles a long life into one hour. I saw two beings in the hues of youth Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill, Green and of mild declivity, the last As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such, Save that there was no sea to lave its base, There was but one beloved face on earth, For his eye follow'd hers, and saw with hers, Which colour'd all his objects:-he had ceased To live within himself; she was his life, And his cheek change tempestuously—his heart Unknowing of its cause of agony. Her infant-friendship had bestow'd on him; | Reposing from the noon-tide sultriness, Herself the solitary scion left Of a time-honour'd race. It was a name Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not-and why? Time taught him a deep answer when Another; even now she loved another, A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. Words which I could not guess of; then His bow'd head on his hands, and shook as With a convulsion-then arose again, What he had written, but he shed no tears, Couch'd among fallen columns, in the shade side Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds Were fasten'd near a fountain; and a man A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. She dwelt, begirt with growing Infancy, And he who had so loved her was not there Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved, For quickly comes such knowledge, that Nor could he be a part of that which prey'd his heart | Upon her mind —a spectre of the past. Was darken'd with her shadow, and she saw That he was wretched, but she saw not all. He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp He took her hand; a moment o'er his face A tablet of unutterable thoughts Was traced, and then it faded, as it came; He dropped the hand he held. and with slow steps Retired, but not as bidding her adieu, From out the massy gate of that old Hall, A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The Boy was sprung to manhood: in the wilds A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The Wanderer was return'd.- I saw him stand Before an Altar-with a gentle bride; The Starlight of his Boyhood;—as he stood Of fiery climes he made himself a home, | And all things reel'd around him; he And his soul drank their sunbeams; he was girt With strange and dusky aspects; he was not could see Not that which was, nor that which should But the old mansion,and the accustom'd hall, light: What business had they there at such a time? And her who was his destiny, came back | The beings which surrounded him were gone, A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. wise Have a far deeper madness, and the glance A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The Wanderer was alone as heretofore, many men, And made him friends of mountains: with the stars And the quick Spirit of the Universe My dream was past; it had no further change. It was of a strange order, that the doom Of these two creatures should be thus traced out Almost like a reality—the one To end in madness-both in misery. DARKNESS. Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Morn came, and went and came, and And men forgot their passions in the dread The palaces of crowned kings-the huts, sumed, Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits Their chins upon their clenched hands, and And others hurried to and fro, and fed And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd And men were gathered round their blazing | And twined themselves among the multitude, Hissing, but stingless-they were slain for food: homes To look once more into each other's face; And War, which for a moment was no more, Did glut himself again; a meal was bought With blood, and cach sate sullenly apart Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left; All earth was but one thought- and that was death, Immediate and inglorious; and the pang The brows of men by the despairing light | Of famine fed upon all entrails; men Extinguish'd with a crash-and all was black. |