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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=359092" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>To His Sister Paolina,</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">ON HER APPROACHING MARRIAGE.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Since now thou art about to leave<br>Thy father's quiet house,<br>And all the phantoms and illusions dear,<br>That heaven-born fancies round it weave,<br>And to this lonely region lend their charm,<br>Unto the dust and noise of life condemned,<br>By destiny, soon wilt thou learn to see<br>Our wretchedness and infamy,<br>My sister dear, who, in these mournful times,<br>Alas, wilt more unhappy souls bestow<br>On our unhappy Italy!<br>With strong examples strengthen thou their minds;<br>For cruel fate propitious gales<br>Hath e'er to virtue's course denied,<br>Nor in weak souls can purity reside.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thy sons must either poor, or cowards be.<br>Prefer them poor. It is the custom still.<br>Desert and fortune never yet were friends;<br>The strife between them never ends.<br>Unhappy they, who in these evil days<br>Are born when all things totter to their fall!<br>But that we must to heaven leave.<br>Be this, above all things, thy care,<br>Thy children still to rear,<br>As those who court not Fortune's smiles,<br>Nor playthings are of idle hope, or fear:<br>And so the future age will call them blessed;<br>For, in this slothful and deceitful world,<br>The living virtue ever we despise,<br>The dead we load with eulogies.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Women, to you our country looks,<br>For the redemption of her fame:<br>Ah, not unto our injury and shame,<br>On the soft lustre of your eyes<br>A power far mightier was conferred<br>Than that of fire or sword!<br>The wise and strong, in thought and act, are by<br>Your judgment led; nay all who live<br>Beneath the sun, to you still bend the knee.<br>On you I call, then; answer me!<br>Have _you_ youth's holy aspirations quenched?<br>And are our natures broken, crushed by _you_?<br>These sluggish minds, these low desires,<br>These nerveless arms, these feeble knees.<br>Say, say, are you to blame for these?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Love is the spur to noble deeds,<br>To him its worth who knows;<br>And beauty still to lofty love inspires.<br>Love never in his spirit glows,<br>Whose heart exults not in his breast,<br>When angry winds in fight descend,<br>And heaven gathers all its clouds,<br>And mountain crests the lightnings rend.<br>O wives, O maidens, he<br>Who shrinks from danger, turns his back upon<br>His country in her need, and only seeks<br>His base desires and appetites to feed,<br>Excites your hatred and your scorn;<br>If ye for men, and not for milk-sops, feel<br>The glow of love o'er your soft bosoms steal.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The mothers of unwarlike sons<br>O may ye ne'er be called!<br>Your children still inure<br>For virtue's sake all trials to endure;<br>To scorn the vices of this wretched age;<br>To cherish loyal thoughts, and high desires;<br>And learn how much they owe unto their sires.<br>The sons of Sparta thus became,<br>Amid the memories of heroes old,<br>Deserving of the Grecian name;<br>While the young spouse the trusty sword<br>Upon the loved one's side would gird,<br>And, afterwards, with her black locks,<br>The bloodless, naked corpse concealed,<br>When homeward borne upon the faithful shield.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Virginia, thy soft cheek<br>In Beauty's finest mould was framed;<br>But thy disdain Rome's haughty lord inflamed.<br>How lovely wast thou, in thy youth's sweet prime,<br>When the rough dagger of thy sire<br>Thy snowy breast did smite,<br>And thou, a willing victim, didst descend<br>Into realms of night!<br>'May old age wither and consume my frame,<br>O father,'--thus she said;<br>'And may they now for me the tomb prepare,<br>E'er I the impious bed<br>Of that foul tyrant share:<br>And if my blood new life and liberty<br>May give to Rome, by thy hand let me die!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ah, in those better days<br>When more propitious shone the sun than now,<br>Thy tomb, dear child, was not left comfortless,<br>But honored with the tears of all.<br>Behold, around thy lovely corpse, the sons<br>Of Romulus with holy wrath inflamed;<br>Behold the tyrants locks with dust besmeared;<br>In sluggish breasts once more<br>The sacred name of Liberty revered;<br>Behold o'er all the subjugated earth,<br>The troops of Latium march triumphant forth,<br>From torrid desert to the gloomy pole.<br>And thus eternal Rome,<br>That had so long in sloth oblivious lain,<br>A daughter's sacrifice revives again.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Count+Giacomo+Leopardi">Count Giacomo Leopardi</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=359092" data-title="To His Sister Paolina, de Count Giacomo Leopardi" data-description="ON HER APPROACHING MARRIAGE.


Since now thou art about to leave
Thy father's quiet house,
And all the phantoms and illusions dear,
That heaven-born fancies round it weave,
And to this lonely region lend their charm,
Unto the dust and noise of lif..."></div>
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