The Moon is up, and yet it is not night-
Sunset divides the sky with her-a sea
Of glory streams along the Alpine height
Of blue Friuli's mountains; Heaven is free
From clouds, but of all colours seems to be
Melted to one vast Iris of the West,
Where the Day joins the past Eternity;
While on the other hand, meek Dian's crest
Floats through the azure air—an island of the blest!
XXVIII.
A single star is at her side, and reigns
With her o'er half the lovely heaven; but still (14)
Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains
Rolled o'er the peak of the far Rhætian hill,
As Day and Night contending were, until
Nature reclaimed 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 glassed within it glows,
Filled with the face of heaven, which, from afar,
Comes down upon the waters; all its hues,
From the rich sunset to the rising star,
Their magical variety diffuse:
And now they change: a paler shadow strews
Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting day
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues
With a new colour as it gasps away,
The last still loveliest, till-'tis gone-and all is gray.
XXX.
There is a tomb in Arqua ;-reared in air,
Pillared in their sarcophagus, repose
The bones of Laura's lover; here repair
Many familiar with his well-sung woes,
The pilgrims of his genius. He arose
To raise a language, and his land reclaim
From the dull yoke of her barbaric foes;
Watering the tree which bears his lady's name (15)
With his melodious tears, he gave himself to fame.
They kept his dust in Arqua, where he died; (16)
The mountain-village where his latter days
Went down the vale of years; and 'tis their pride-
To offer to the passing stranger's gaze
His mansion and his sepulchre; both plain
And venerably simple, such as raise
A feeling more accordant with his strain
Than if a pyramid formed his monumental fane.
XXXII.
And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt,
Is one of that complexion which seems made
For those who their mortality have felt,
And sought a refuge for their hopes decayed
In the deep umbrage of a green hill's shade,
Which shows a distant prospect far away
Of busy cities, now in vain displayed
For they can lure no further; and the ray
Of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday.
Developing the mountains, leaves, and flowers,
And shining in the brawling brook, where-by,
Clear as its current, glide the sauntering hours
With a calm languor, which, though to the eye
Idlesse it seem, hath its morality.
If from society we learn to live,
'Tis solitude should teach us how to die;
It hath no flatterers; vanity can give
No hollow aid; alone-man with his God must strive :
Or, it may be, with demons, who impair (17)
The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey
In melancholy bosoms, such as were
Of moody texture from their earliest day,
And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay,
Deeming themselves predestined to a doom
Which is not of the pangs that pass away;
Making the sun like blood, the earth a tomb,
The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom.
No. 4.
Ferrara in thy wide and grass-grown streets,
Whose symmetry was not for solitude,
There seems as 'twere a curse upon the seats
Of former sovereigns, and the antique brood
Of Este, which for many an age made good
Its strength within thy walls, and was of yore
Patron or tyrant, as the changing mood
Of petty power impelled, of those who wore
The wreath which Dante's brow alone had worn before.
XXXVI.
And Tasso is their glory and their shame.
Hark to his strain! and then survey his cell!
And see how dearly earned Torquato's fame,
And where Alfonso bade his poet dwell;
The miserable despot could not quell
The insulted mind he sought to quench, and blend
With the surrounding maniacs, in the hell
Where he had plunged it. Glory without end
Scattered the clouds away-and on that name attend
XXXVII.
The tears and praises of all time; while thine
Would rot in its oblivion-in the sink
Of worthless dust, which from they boasted line
Is shaken into nothing; but the link
Thou formest in his fortunes bids us think
Of thy poor malice, naming thee with scorn-
Alfonso! how thy ducal pageants shrink
From thee if in another station born,
Scarce fit to be the slave of him thou mad'st to mourn: XXXVIII.
Thou! formed to eat, and be despised, and die, Even as the beasts that perish, save that thou Hadst a more splended trough and wider sty; He! with a glory round his furrowed brow, Which emanated then, and dazzles now In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire, And Boileau, whose rash envy could allow (18) No strain which shamed his country's creaking lyre,、 That whetstone of the teeth-monotony in wire!
Peace to Torquato's injured shade! 'twas his
In life and death to be the mark where Wrong
Aimed with her poisoned arrows; but to miss.
Oh, victor unsurpassed in modern song
Each year brings forth its millions; but how long
The tide of generations shall roll on,
And not the whole combined and countless throng Compose a mind like thine? though all in one Condensed their scattered rays, they would not form a sun XL.
Great as thou art, yet paralleled by those,
Thy countrymen, before thee born to shine,
The Bards of Hell and Chivalry
The Tuscan father's comedy divine;
Then, not unequal to the Florentine,
The southern Scott, the minstrel who called forth
A new creation with his magic line,
And, like the Ariosto of the North,
Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightly worth.
The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust (19)
The iron crown of laurel's mimic'd leaves;
Nor was the ominous element unjust,
For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves (20)
Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves,
And the false semblance but disgraced his brow;
Yet still, if fondly Superstition grieves,
Know, that the lightning sanctifies below (21)
Whate'er it strikes ;-yon head is doubly sacred now.
XLII.
Italia! oh Italia! thou who hast (22)
The fatal gift of beauty, which became
A funeral dower of present woes and past,
On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed by shame,
And annals graved in characters of flame.
Oh God! that thou wert in thy nakedness
Less lovely or more powerful, and could'st claim
Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press
To shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy distress
Then might'st thou more appal, or, least desired, Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored
For thy destructive charms; then, still untired, Would not be seen the armed torrents poured Down the deep Alps; nor would the hostile horde Of many-nationed spoilers from the Po
Quaff blood and water; nor the stranger's sword. Be thy sad weapon of defence, and so,
Victor or vanquished, thou the slave of friend or foe.
XLIV.
Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him, (23)
The Roman friend of Rome's least mortal mind,
The friend of Tully: as my bark did skim
The bright blue waters with a fanning wind,
Came Megara before me, and behind
Fgina lay, Piræus on the right,
And Corinth on the left; I lay reclined
Along the prow, and saw all these unite
In ruin, even as he had seen the desolate sight;
For Time hath not rebuilt them, but upreared
Barbaric dwellings on their shattered site,
Which only make more mourned and more endeared
The few last rays of their far-scattered light,
And the crushed relics of their vanished might.
The Roman saw these tombs in his own age,
These sepulchres of cities, which excite
Sad wonder, and his yet surviving page
The moral lesson bears, drawn from such pilgrimage.
XLVI.
That page is now before me, and on mine
His country's ruin added to the mass
Of perished states he mourned in their decline,
And I in desolation: all that was
Of then destruction is; and now, alas!
Rome Rome imperial, bows her to the storm,
In the same dust and blackness, and we pass
The skeleton of her Titanic form, (24)
Wrecks of another world, whose ashes still are warm.
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