Statues of glass—all shivered—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 sceptre 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 enthrals, [7.H.]
 Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls.

XVI.

When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse,
 And fettered thousands bore the yoke of war,
 Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse,[399]
 Her voice their only ransom from afar:[lr]
 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.[ls]

XVII.

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[lt]
 Which ties thee to thy tyrants; and thy lot
 Is shameful to the nations,—most of all,
 Albion! to thee:[400] the Ocean queen should not
 Abandon Ocean's children; in the fall
 Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall.[lu]

XVIII.

I loved her from my 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, Shakespeare's art,[lv][401]
 Had stamped her image in me, and even so,
 Although I found her thus, we did not part;[lw]
 Perchance even dearer in her day of woe,
 Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show.

XIX.

I can repeople with the past—and of
 The present there is still for eye and thought,
 And meditation chastened down, enough;
 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![402] have their colours caught:
 There are some feelings Time can not benumb,[lx]
 Nor Torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb.

XX.

But from their nature will the Tannen[403] grow[ly]
 Loftiest on loftiest and least sheltered rocks,
 Rooted in barrenness, where nought below
 Of soil supports them 'gainst the Alpine shocks
 Of eddying storms; yet springs the trunk, and mocks
 The howling tempest, till its height and frame
 Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks
 Of bleak, gray granite into life it came,[lz]
 And grew a giant tree;—the Mind may grow the same.

XXI.

Existence may be borne, and the deep root
 Of life and sufferance make its firm abode
 In bare and desolated bosoms: mute[ma]
 The camel labours with the heaviest load,
 And the wolf dies in silence—not bestowed
 In vain should such example be; if they,
 Things of ignoble or of savage mood,
 Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay
 May temper it to bear,—it is but for a day.

XXII.

All suffering doth destroy, or is destroyed,[404]
 Even by the sufferer—and, in each event,
 Ends:—Some, with hope replenished and rebuoyed,
 Return to whence they came—with like intent,
 And weave their web again; some, bowed 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 formed to sink or climb.

XXIII.

But ever and anon of griefs subdued
 There comes a token like a Scorpion's sting,
 Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued;
 And slight withal may be the things which bring
 Back on the heart the weight which it would fling
 Aside for ever: it may be a sound—[405]
 A tone of music—summer's eve—or spring—[mb]
 A flower—the wind—the Ocean—which shall wound,
 Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound;

XXIV.

And how and why we know not, nor can trace
 Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind,
 But feel the shock renewed, nor can efface
 The blight and blackening which it leaves behind,
 Which out of things familiar, undesigned,
 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 mourned—the loved—the lost—too many! yet how few![406]

XXV.

But my Soul wanders; I demand it back
 To meditate amongst decay, and stand
 A ruin amidst ruins; there to track
 Fall'n states and buried greatness, o'er a land
 Which was the mightiest in its old command,
 And is the loveliest, and must ever be
 The master-mould of Nature's heavenly hand;
 Wherein were cast the heroic and the free,—
 The beautiful—the brave—the Lords of earth and sea,

XXVI.

The Commonwealth of Kings—the Men of Rome!
 And even since, and now, fair Italy!
 Thou art the Garden of the World, the Home
 Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree;
 Even in thy desert, what is like to thee?
 Thy very weeds are beautiful—thy waste
 More rich than other climes' fertility;
 Thy wreck a glory—and thy ruin graced
 With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced.

XXVII.

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;[407] 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![408]

XXVIII.

A single star is at her side, and reigns
 With her o'er half the lovely heaven; but still
 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,[409] where their hues instil
 The odorous purple of a new-born rose,
 Which streams upon her stream, and glassed within it glows,

XXIX.

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 Arquà;—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[410] [8.H.]
With his melodious tears, he gave himself to Fame.

XXXI.

They keep his dust in Arquà,[411] where he died— [9.H.]
The mountain-village where his latter days
 Went down the vale of years; and 'tis their pride—
 An honest pride—and let it be their praise,
 To offer to the passing stranger's gaze
 His mansion and his sepulchre—both plain[mc]
 And venerably simple—such as raise
 A feeling more accordant with his strain
 Than if a Pyramid formed his monumental fane.[md]

XXXII.

And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt
 Is one of that complexion which seems made
 For those who their mortality[412] have felt,
 And sought a refuge from 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[413]
 Of a bright Sun can make sufficient holiday,

XXXIII.

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,[me]
 '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:[mf]

XXXIV.

Or, it may be, with Demons,[414] who impair
 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;[mg]
 Making the Sun like blood, the Earth a tomb,
 The tomb a hell—and Hell itself a murkier gloom.[mh]

XXXV.

Ferrara![415] 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,[416] 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![417]
 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 thy 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,[mi]
 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 splendid 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,[418] [10.H.]
And Boileau, whose rash envy could allow[mj]
 No strain which shamed his country's creaking lyre,
 That whetstone of the teeth—Monotony in wire![mk][419]

XXXIX.

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[ml]
 Condensed their scattered rays—they would not form a Sun.[mm]

XL.

Great as thou art, yet paralleled by those,
 Thy countrymen, before thee born to shine,
 The Bards of Hell and Chivalry: first rose
 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,[420]
 Sang Ladye-love and War, Romance and Knightly Worth.

XLI.

The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust [11.H.]
The iron crown of laurel's mimicked leaves;
 Nor was the ominous element unjust,
 For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves [12.H.]
 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 [13.H.]
 Whate'er it strikes;—yon head is doubly sacred now.

XLII.

Italia! oh, Italia! thou who hast[421]
 The fatal gift of Beauty, which became
 A funeral dower of present woes and past—
 On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed by shame,[mn]
 And annals graved in characters of flame.
 Oh, God! that thou wert in thy nakedness
 Less lovely or more powerful, and couldst claim
 Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press
 To shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy distress;

XLIII.

Then might'st thou more appal—or, less desired,
 Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored[mo]
 For thy destructive charms; then, still untired,
 Would not be seen the arméd 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,
 The Roman friend of Rome's least-mortal mind,[422]
 The friend of Tully: as my bark did skim
 The bright blue waters with a fanning wind,
 Came Megara before me, and behind
 Ægina 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;

XLV.

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 crashed relics of their vanished might.
 The Roman saw these tombs in his own age,
 These sepulchres of cities, which excite[mp]
 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,[423]
 In the same dust and blackness, and we pass
 The skeleton of her Titanic form,[424]
 Wrecks of another world, whose ashes still are warm.

XLVII.

Yet, Italy! through every other land
 Thy wrongs should ring—and shall—from side to side;[425]
 Mother of Arts! as once of Arms! thy hand
 Was then our Guardian, and is still our Guide;
 Parent of our Religion! whom the wide
 Nations have knelt to for the keys of Heaven!
 Europe, repentant of her parricide,
 Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven,
 Roll the barbarian tide, and sue to be forgiven.

XLVIII.

But Arno wins us to the fair white walls,
 Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps
 A softer feeling for her fairy halls:
 Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps
 Her corn, and wine, and oil—and Plenty leaps
 To laughing life, with her redundant Horn.
 Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps
 Was modern Luxury of Commerce born,[mq][426]
 And buried Learning rose, redeemed to a new Morn.

XLIX.

There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills [mr] [427] [14.H.]
The air around with Beauty—we inhale[ms]
 The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils
 Part of its immortality—the veil
 Of heaven is half undrawn—within the pale
 We stand, and in that form and face behold
 What Mind can make, when Nature's self would fail;
 And to the fond Idolaters of old
 Envy the innate flash which such a Soul could mould:

L.

We gaze and turn away, and know not where,
 Dazzled and drunk with Beauty,[428] till the heart
 Reels with its fulness; there—for ever there—
 Chained to the chariot of triumphal Art,
 We stand as captives, and would not depart.
 Away!—there need no words, nor terms precise,
 The paltry jargon of the marble mart,
 Where Pedantry gulls Folly—we have eyes:
 Blood—pulse—and breast confirm the Dardan Shepherd's prize.

LI.

Appear'dst thou not to Paris in this guise?
 Or to more deeply blest Anchises? or,
 In all thy perfect Goddess-ship, when lies
 Before thee thy own vanquished Lord of War?
 And gazing in thy face as toward a star,
 Laid on thy lap, his eyes to thee upturn,
 Feeding on thy sweet cheek![429] while thy lips are
 With lava kisses melting while they burn,
 Showered on his eyelids, brow, and mouth, as from an urn!

LII.

Glowing, and circumfused in speechless love—[mt][430]
 Their full divinity inadequate
 That feeling to express, or to improve—
 The Gods become as mortals—and man's fate[mu]
 Has moments like their brightest; but the weight
 Of earth recoils upon us;—let it go!
 We can recall such visions, and create,
 From what has been, or might be, things which grow
 Into thy statue's form, and look like gods below.

LIII.

I leave to learnéd fingers, and wise hands,
 The Artist and his Ape, to teach and tell
 How well his Connoisseurship understands
 The graceful bend, and the voluptuous swell:
 Let these describe the undescribable:
 I would not their vile breath should crisp the stream
 Wherein that Image shall for ever dwell—
 The unruffled mirror of the loveliest dream
 That ever left the sky on the deep soul to beam.

LIV.

In Santa Croce's[431] holy precincts lie [15.H.]
Ashes which make it holier, dust which is
 Even in itself an immortality,
 Though there were nothing save the past, and this,
 The particle of those sublimities
 Which have relapsed to chaos:—here repose
 Angelo's—Alfieri's[432] bones—and his, [16.H.]
 The starry Galileo, with his woes;
 Here Machiavelli's earth returned to whence it rose. [17.H.]

LV.

These are four minds, which, like the elements,
 Might furnish forth creation:—Italy![mv]
 Time, which hath wronged thee with ten thousand rents
 Of thine imperial garment, shall deny[mw]
 And hath denied, to every other sky,
 Spirits which soar from ruin:—thy Decay
 Is still impregnate with divinity,
 Which gilds it with revivifying ray;
 Such as the great of yore, Canova[433] is to-day.

LVI.

But where repose the all Etruscan three—
 Dante, and Petrarch, and, scarce less than they,
 The Bard of Prose, creative Spirit! he[mx]
 Of the Hundred Tales of Love—where did they lay
 Their bones, distinguished from our common clay
 In death as life? Are they resolved to dust,
 And have their Country's Marbles nought to say?
 Could not her quarries furnish forth one bust?
 Did they not to her breast their filial earth entrust?

LVII.

Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar,[434] [18.H.]
Like Scipio buried by the upbraiding shore:[435] [19.H.]
 Thy factions, in their worse than civil war,[436]
 Proscribed the Bard whose name for evermore
 Their children's children would in vain adore
 With the remorse of ages; and the crown[437] [20.H.]
 Which Petrarch's laureate brow supremely wore,
 Upon a far and foreign soil had grown,
 His Life, his Fame, his Grave, though rifled—not thine own.[438]

LVIII.