Florence dooms me but death or banish-
ment,

Ferrara him a pittance and a cell,
Harder to bear and less deserved, for I
Had stung the factions which I strove
to quell;

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
agree,

And die, or are degraded, for the mind
Succumbs to long infection, and despair,
And vulture-passions flying close behind,
Await the moment to assail and tear;.
And when at length the winged wander-
ers stoop,
Then is the prey-birds' triumph, then
they share

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,
Shines for a night of terror, then repels
Its fire back to the hell from whence it
sprung,
The hell which in its entrails ever dwells.

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,
For what is poesy but to create
From overfeeling good or ill; and aim
At an external life beyond our fate,

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,

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.

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,
They do divide our being; they become
A portion of ourselves as of our time,
And look like heralds of eternity;
They pass like spirits of the past,-they

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
Arising from such rustic roofs; - the hill
Was crown'd with a peculiar diadem
Of trees, in circular array, so fix'd,
Not by the sport of nature, but of man:
These two, a maiden and a youth, were there
Gazing-the one on all that was beneath
Fair as herself-but the boy gazed on her;
And both were young,and one was beautiful:
And both were young - yet not alike in
youth.

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,
And that was shining on him; he had look'd
Upon it till it could not pass away;
He had no breath, no being, but in kers,
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,
But trembled on her words; she was his
sight,

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,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts,
Which terminated all: upon a tone,
A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and
flow,

And his cheek change tempestuously—his

heart

Unknowing of its cause of agony.
But she in these fond feelings had no share :
Her sighs were not for him; to her he was
Even as a brother - but no more; 'twas much,
| For brotherless she was, save in the name