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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=396058" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: A Romaunt. Canto IV.</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I.<br>I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; <br>A palace and a prison on each hand: <br>I saw from out the wave her structures rise <br>As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: <br>A thousand years their cloudy wings expand <br>Around me, and a dying Glory smiles <br>O'er the far times, when many a subject land <br>Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles, <br>Where Venice sate in state, thron'd on her hundred isles! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">II.<br>She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, <br>Rising with her tiara of proud towers <br>At airy distance, with majestic motion, <br>A ruler of the waters and their powers: <br>And such she was; her daughters had their dowers <br>From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East <br>Pour'd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers. <br>In purple was she rob'd, and of her feast <br>Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity increas'd. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">III.<br>In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, <br>And silent rows the songless gondolier; <br>Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, <br>And music meets not always now the ear: <br>Those days are gone -- but Beauty still is here. <br>States fall, arts fade -- but Nature doth not die, <br>Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear, <br>The pleasant place of all festivity, <br>The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV. <br>But unto us she hath a spell beyond <br>Her name in story, and her long array <br>Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond <br>Above the dogeless city's vanish'd sway; <br>Ours is a trophy which will not decay <br>With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor, <br>And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away -- <br>The keystones of the arch! though all were o'er, <br>For us repeopl'd were the solitary shore. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">V. <br>The beings of the mind are not of clay; <br>Essentially immortal, they create <br>And multiply in us a brighter ray <br>And more belov'd existence: that which Fate <br>Prohibits to dull life, in this our state <br>Of mortal bondage, by these spirits supplied, <br>First exiles, then replaces what we hate; <br>Watering the heart whose early flowers have died, <br>And with a fresher growth replenishing the void. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">VI. <br>Such is the refuge of our youth and age, <br>The first from Hope, the last from Vacancy; <br>And this worn feeling peoples many a page, <br>And, maybe, that which grows beneath mine eye: <br>Yet there are things whose strong reality <br>Outshines our fairy-land; in shape and hues <br>More beautiful than our fantastic sky, <br>And the strange constellations which the Muse <br>O'er her wild universe is skilful to diffuse: </div><div style="margin:10px 0">VII. <br>I saw or dream'd of such -- but let them go; <br>They came like truth -- and disappear'd like dreams; <br>And whatsoe'er they were -- are now but so: <br>I could replace them if I would; still teems <br>My mind with many a form which aptly seems <br>Such as I sought for, and at moments found; <br>Let these too go -- for waking Reason deems <br>Such overweening fantasies unsound, <br>And other voices speak, and other sights surround. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">VIII. <br>I've taught me other tongues, and in strange eyes <br>Have made me not a stranger; to the mind <br>Which is itself, no changes bring surprise; <br>Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find <br>A country with -- ay, or without mankind; <br>Yet was I born where men are proud to be -- <br>Not without cause; and should I leave behind <br>The inviolate island of the sage and free, <br>And seek me out a home by a remoter sea, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">IX.<br>Perhaps I lov'd it well: and should I lay <br>My ashes in a soil which is not mine, <br>My spirit shall resume it -- if we may <br>Unbodied choose a sanctuary. I twine <br>My hopes of being remember'd in my line <br>With my land's language: if too fond and far <br>These aspirations in their scope incline, <br>If my fame should be, as my fortunes are, <br>Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar </div><div style="margin:10px 0">X.<br>My name from out the temple where the dead <br>Are honour'd by the nations -- let it be -- <br>And light the laurels on a loftier head! <br>And be the Spartan's epitaph on me -- <br>'Sparta hath many a worthier son than he.' <br>Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need; <br>The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree <br>I planted: they have torn me, and I bleed: <br>I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XI. <br>The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord; <br>And annual marriage now no more renew'd, <br>The Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored, <br>Neglected garment of her widowhood! <br>St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood <br>Stand, but in mockery of his wither'd power, <br>Over he proud Place where an Emperor sued, <br>And monarchs gaz'd and envied in the hour <br>When Venice was a queen with an unequall'd dower. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XII. <br>The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns -- <br>An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt; <br>Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains <br>Clank over sceptred cities, nations melt <br>From power's high pinnacle, when they have felt <br>The sunshine for a while, and downward go <br>Like Lauwine loosen'd from the mountain's belt; <br>Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo! <br>Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIII. <br>Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass, <br>Their gilded collars glittering in the sun; <br>But is not Doria's menace come to pass? <br>Are they not bridled? -- Venice, lost and won, <br>Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done, <br>Sinks, like a sea-weed, into whence she rose! <br>Better be whelm'd beneath the waves, and shun, <br>Even in destruction's depth, her foreign foes, <br>From whom submission wrings an infamous repose. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIV. <br>In youth she was all glory, a new Tyre, <br>Her very by-word sprung from victory, <br>The 'Planter of the Lion,' which through fire <br>And blood she bore o'er subject earth and sea; <br>Though making many slaves, herself still free, <br>And Europe's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite; <br>Witness Troy's rival, Candia! Vouch it, ye <br>Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's fight! <br>For ye are names no time nor tyranny can blight. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XV. <br>Statues of glass -- all shiver'd -- the long file <br>Of her dead Doges are declin'd to dust; <br>But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile <br>Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust; <br>Their sceptre broken, and their sword in rust, <br>Have yielded to the stranger: empty halls, <br>Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must <br>Too oft remind her who and what enthralls, <br>Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XVI.<br>When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse, <br>And fetter'd thousands bore the yoke of war, <br>Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse, <br>Her voice their only ransom from afar: <br>See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car <br>Of the o'ermaster'd victor stops, the reins <br>Fall from his hands -- his idle scimitar <br>Starts from its belt -- he rends his captive's chains, <br>And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XVII.<br>Thus, Venice! if no stronger claim were thine, <br>Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot, <br>Thy choral memory of the Bard divine, <br>Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot <br>Which ties thee to thy tyrants; and thy lot <br>Is shameful to the nations -- most of all, <br>Albion, to thee: the Ocean queen should not <br>Abandon Ocean's children; in the fall <br>Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XVIII. <br>I loved her from my boyhood; she to me <br>Was as a fairy city of the heart, <br>Rising like water-columns from the sea, <br>Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart; <br>And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakespeare's art, <br>Had stamp'd her image in me, and even so, <br>Although I found her thus, we did not part; <br>Perchance even dearer in her day of woe, <br>Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIX.<br>I can repeople with the past -- and of <br>The present there is still for eye and thought, <br>And meditation chasten'd down, enough; <br>And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought; <br>And of the happiest moments which were wrought <br>Within the web of my existence, some <br>From thee, fair Venice! have their colours caught: <br>There are some feelings Time cannot benumb, <br>Nor Torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XX. <br>But from their nature will the Tannen grow <br>Loftiest on loftiest and least shelter'd rocks, <br>Rooted in barrenness, where nought below <br>Of soil supports them 'gainst the Alpine shocks <br>Of eddying storms; yet springs the trunk, and mocks <br>The howling tempest, till its height and frame <br>Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks <br>Of bleak, gray granite into life it came, <br>And grew a giant tree; -- the mind may grow the same. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXI <br>Existence may be borne, and the deep root <br>Of life and sufferance make its firm abode <br>The bare and desolated bosoms: mute <br>The camel labours with the heaviest load, <br>And the wolf dies in silence, -- not bestow'd <br>In vain should such example be; if they, <br>Things of ignoble or of savage mood, <br>Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay <br>May temper it to bear, -- it is but for a day. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXII <br>All suffering doth destroy, or is destroy'd, <br>Even by the sufferer; and, in each event, <br>Ends: -- Some, with hope replenish'd and rebuoy'd, <br>Return to whence they came -- with like intent, <br>And weave their web again; some, bow'd and bent, <br>Wax gray and ghastly, withering ere their time, <br>And perish with the reed on which they leant; <br>Some seek devotion, toil, war, good or crime, <br>According as their souls were form'd to sink or climb. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXIII <br>But ever and anon of griefs subdued <br>There comes a token like a scorpion's sting, <br>Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued; <br>And slight withal may be the things which bring <br>Back on the heart the weight which it would fling <br>Aside for ever: it may be a sound -- <br>A tone of music -- summer's eve -- or spring -- <br>A flower -- the wind -- the ocean -- which shall wound, <br>Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXIV <br>And how and why we know not, nor can trace <br>Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind, <br>But feel the shock renew'd, nor can efface <br>The blight and blackening which it leaves behind, <br>Which out of things familiar, undesign'd, <br>When least we deem of such, calls up to view <br>The spectres whom no exorcism can bind, -- <br>The cold, the changed, perchance the dead -- anew, <br>The mourn'd, the loved, the lost -- too many! yet how few! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXV <br>But my soul wanders: I demand it back <br>To meditate amongst decay, and stand <br>A ruin amidst ruins; there to track <br>Fall'n states and buried greatness, o'er a land <br>Which was the mightiest in its old command, <br>And is the loveliest, and must ever be <br>The master mould of Nature's heavenly hand; <br>Wherein were cast the heroic and the free, <br>The beautiful, the brave, the lords of earth and sea, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXVI <br>The commonwealth of kings, the men of Rome! <br>And even since, and now, fair Italy! <br>Thou art the garden of the world, the home <br>Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree; <br>Even in thy desert, what is like to thee? <br>Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste <br>More rich than other climes' fertility; <br>Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced <br>With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXVII <br>The moon is up, and yet it is not night; <br>Sunset divides the sky with her; a sea <br>Of glory streams along the Alpine height <br>Of blue Friuli's mountains; Heaven is free <br>From clouds, but of all colours seems to be, -- <br>Melted to one vast Iris of the West, -- <br>Where the Day joins the past Eternity, <br>While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest <br>Floats through the azure air -- an island of the blest! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXVIII <br>A single star is at her side, and reigns <br>With her o'er half the lovely heaven; but still <br>Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains <br>Roll'd o'er the peak of the far Rhætian hill, <br>As Day and Night contending were, until <br>Nature reclaim'd her order: -- gently flows <br>The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil <br>The odorous purple of a new-born rose, <br>Which streams upon her stream, and glass'd within it glows, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXIX <br>Fill'd with the face of heaven, which, from afar, <br>Comes down upon the waters; all its hues, <br>From the rich sunset to the rising star, <br>Their magical variety diffuse: <br>And now they change; a paler shadow strews <br>Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting day <br>Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues <br>With a new colour as it gasps away -- <br>The last still loveliest, -- till -- 'tis gone -- and all is gray. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXX <br>There is a tomb at Arqua; -- rear'd in air, <br>Pillar'd in their sarcophagus, repose <br>The bones of Laura's lover: here repair <br>Many familiar with his well-sung woes, <br>The pilgrims of his genius. He arose <br>To raise a language, and his land reclaim <br>From the dull yoke of her barbaric foes: <br>Watering the tree which bears his lady's name <br>With his melodious tears, he gave himself to fame. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXI <br>They keep his dust in Arqua, where he died; <br>The mountain-village where his latter days <br>Went down the vale of years; and 'tis their pride -- <br>An honest pride -- and let it be their praise, <br>To offer to the passing stranger's gaze <br>His mansion and his sepulchre; both plain <br>And venerably simple, such as raise <br>A feeling more accordant with his train <br>Than if a pyramid form'd his monumental fane. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXII <br>And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt <br>Is one of that complexion which seems made <br>For those who their mortality have felt, <br>And sought a refuge from their hopes decay'd <br>In the deep umbrage of a green hill's shade, <br>Which shows a distant prospect far away <br>Of busy cities, now in vain display'd, <br>For they can lure no further; and the ray <br>Of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXIII <br>Developing the mountains, leaves, and flowers, <br>And shining in the brawling brook, whereby, <br>Clear as its current, glide the sauntering hours <br>With a calm languor, which, though to the eye <br>Idlesse it seem, hath its mortality. <br>If from society we learn to live, <br>'Tis solitude should teach us how to die; <br>It hath no flatters; vanity can give <br>No hollow aid; alone -- man with his God must strive: </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXIV <br>Or, it may be, with demons, who impair <br>The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey <br>In melancholy bosoms, such as were <br>Of moody texture, from their earliest day, <br>And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay, <br>Deeming themselves predestined to a doom <br>Which is not of the pangs that pass away; <br>Making the sun like blood, the earth a tomb, <br>The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXV <br>Ferrara! in thy wide and grass-grown streets, <br>Whose symmetry was not for solitude, <br>There seems as 'twere a curse upon the seats <br>Of former sovereigns, and the antique brood <br>Of Este, which for many an age made good <br>Its strength within thy walls, ad was of yore <br>Patron or tyrant, as the changing mood <br>Of petty power impell'd, of those who wore <br>The wreath which Dante's brow alone had worn before. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXVI <br>And Tasso is their glory and their shame. <br>Hark to his strain! and then survey his cell! <br>And see how dearly earn'd Torquato's fame, <br>And where Alfonso bade his poet dwell: <br>The miserable despot could not quell <br>The insulted mind he sought to quench, and blend <br>With the surrounding maniacs, in the hell <br>Where he had plunged it. Glory without end <br>Scatter'd the clouds away; and on that name attend </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXVII <br>The tears and praises of all time; while thine <br>Would rot in its oblivion -- in the sink <br>Of worthless dust, which from thy boasted line <br>Is shaken into nothing -- but the link <br>Thou formest in his fortunes bids us think <br>Of thy poor malice, naming thee with scorn: <br>Alfonso! how thy ducal pageants shrink <br>From thee! if in another station born, <br>Scarce fit to be the slave of him thou madest to mourn: </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXVIII <br>Thou! form'd to eat, and be despised, and die, <br>Even as the beasts that perish, save that thou <br>Hadst a more splendid trough and wider sty: <br>He! with a glory round his furrow'd brow, <br>Which emanated then, and dazzles now, <br>In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire, <br>And Boileau, whose rash envy could allow <br>No strain which shamed his country's creaking lyre, <br>That whetstone of the teeth -- monotony in wire! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXIX <br>Peace to Torquato's injured shade! twas his <br>In life and death to be the mark where Wrong <br>Aim'd with her poison'd arrows, but to miss. <br>O, victor unsurpass'd in modern song! <br>Each year brings forth its millions; but how long <br>The tide of generations shall roll on, <br>And not the whole combined and countless throng <br>Compose a mind like thine? though all in one <br>Condensed their scatter'd rays, they would not form a sun. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XL <br>Great as thou art, yet parallel'd by those, <br>Thy countrymen, before thee born to shine, <br>The Bards of Hell and Chivalry: first rose <br>The Tuscan father's Comedy Divine; <br>Then, not unequal to the Florentine, <br>The southern Scott, the minstrel who call'd forth <br>A new creation with his magic line, <br>And, like the Ariosto of the North, <br>Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightly worth. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XLI <br>The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust <br>The iron crown of laurel's mimick'd leaves; <br>Nor was the ominous element unjust <br>For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves <br>Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves, <br>And the false semblance but disgraced his brow; <br>Yet still, if fondly Superstition grieves, <br>Know, that the lightning sanctifies below <br>Whate'er it strikes; -- yon head is doubly sacred now. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XLII <br>Italia! oh Italia! thou who hast <br>The fatal gift of beauty, which became <br>A funeral dower of present woes and past, <br>On thy sweet brow is sorrow plough'd by shame, <br>And annals graved in characters of flame. <br>Oh, God! that thou wert in thy nakedness <br>Less lovely or more powerful, and couldst claim <br>Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press <br>To shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy distress; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XLIII <br>Then might'st thou more appal; or, less desired, <br>Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored <br>For thy destructive charms; then, still untired, <br>Would not be seen the armed torrents pour'd <br>Down the deep Alps; nor would the hostile horde <br>Of many-nation'd spoilers from the Po <br>Quaff blood and water; nor the stranger's sword <br>Be thy sad weapon of defence, and so, <br>Victor or vanquish'd, thou the slave of friend or foe. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XLIV <br>Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him, <br>The Roman friend of Rome's least-mortal mind, <br>The friend of Tully: as my bark did skim <br>The bright blue waters with a fanning wind, <br>Came Megara before me, and behind <br>Ægina lay, Piræus on the right, <br>And Corinth on the left; I lay reclined <br>Along the prow, and saw all these unite <br>In ruin, even as he had seen the desolate sight; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XLV <br>For Time hath not rebuilt them, but uprear'd <br>Barbaric dwellings on their shatter'd site, <br>Which only make more mourn'd and more endear'd <br>The few last rays of their far-scatter'd light, <br>And the crush'd relics of their vanish'd might. <br>The Roman saw these tombs in his own age, <br>These sepulchres of cities, which excite <br>Sad wonder, and his yet surviving page <br>The moral lesson bears, drawn from such pilgrimage. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XLVI <br>That page is now before me, and on mine <br>His country's ruin added to the mass <br>Of perish'd states he mourn'd in their decline, <br>And I in desolation: all that was <br>Of then destruction is; and now, alas! <br>Rome -- Rome imperial, bows her to the storm, <br>In the same dust and blackness, and we pass <br>The skeleton of her Titanic form, <br>Wrecks of another world, whose ashes still are warm. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XLVII <br>Yet, Italy! through every other land <br>Thy wrongs should ring, and shall, from side to side; <br>Mother of Arts! as once of arms; thy hand <br>Was then our guardian, and is still our guide; <br>Parent of our religion! whom the wide <br>Nations have knelt to for the keys of heaven! <br>Europe, repentent of her parricide, <br>Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven, <br>Roll the barbarian tide, and sue to be forgiven. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XLVIII <br>But Arno wins us to the fair white walls, <br>Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps <br>A softer feeling for her fairy halls. <br>Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps <br>Her corn, and wine, and oil, and Plenty leaps <br>To laughing life, with her redundant horn. <br>Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps <br>Was modern Luxury of Commerce born, <br>And buried Learning rose, redeem'd to new morn. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XLIX <br>There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills <br>The air around with beauty; we inhale <br>The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils <br>Part of its immortality; the veil <br>Of heaven is half undrawn; within the pale <br>We stand, and in that form and face behold <br>What Mind can make, when Nature's self would fail; <br>And to the fond idolators of old <br>Envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould: </div><div style="margin:10px 0">L <br>We gaze and turn away, and know not where, <br>Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart <br>Reels with its fulness; there -- for ever there -- <br>Chain'd to the chariot of triumphal Art, <br>We stand as captives, and would not depart. <br>Away! -- there needs no words nor terms precise, <br>The paltry jargon of the marble mart, <br>Where Pedantry gulls Folly -- we have eyes: <br>Blood, pulse, and breast confirm the Dardan Shepherd's prize. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LI <br>Appear'dst thou not to Paris in this guise? <br>Or to more deeply blest Anchises? or, <br>In all thy perfect Goddess-ship, when lies <br>Before thee thy own vanquish'd Lord of War? <br>And gazing in thy face as toward a star, <br>Laid on thy lap, his eyes to thee upturn, <br>Feeding on thy sweet cheek! while thy lips are <br>With lava kisses melting while they burn, <br>Shower'd on his eyelids, brow, and mouth, as from an urn? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LII <br>Glowing, and circumfused in speechless love <br>Their full divinity inadequate <br>That feeling to express, or to improve, <br>The gods become as mortals, and man's fate <br>Has moments like their brightest; but the weight <br>Of earth recoils upon us; -- let it go! <br>We can recall such visions, and create, <br>From what has been, or might be, things which grow <br>Into thy statue's form, and look like gods below. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LIII <br>I leave to learned fingers and wise hands, <br>The artist and his ape, to teach and tell <br>How well his connoisseurship understands <br>The graceful bend, and the voluptuous swell: <br>Let these describe the undescribable: <br>I would not their vile breath should crisp the stream <br>Wherein that image shall for ever dwell; <br>The unruffled mirror of the loveliest dream <br>That ever left the sky on the deep soul to beam. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LIV <br>In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie <br>Ashes which make it holier, dust which is <br>Even in itself an immortality, <br>Though there were nothing save the past, and this, <br>The particle of those sublimities <br>Which have relapsed to chaos: here repose <br>Angelo's, Alfieri's bones, and his, <br>The starry Galileo, with his woes; <br>Here Machiavelli's earth return'd to whence it rose. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LV <br>These are four minds, which, like the elements, <br>Might furnish forth creation: -- Italy! <br>Time, which hath wrong'd thee with ten thousand rents <br>Of thine imperal garment, shall deny, <br>And hath denied, to every other sky, <br>Spirits which soar from ruin: thy decay <br>Is still impregnate with divinity, <br>Which gilds it with revivifying ray; <br>Such as the great of yore, Canova is today. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LVI <br>But where repose the all Etruscan three -- <br>Dante, and Petrarch, and, scarce less thatn they, <br>The Bard of Prose, creative spirit! he <br>Of the Hundred Tales of love -- where did they lay <br>Their bones, distinguish'd from our common clay <br>In death as life? Are they resolved to dust, <br>And have their country's marbles nought to say? <br>Could not her quarries furnish forth one bust? <br>Did they not to her breast their filial earth entrust? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LVII <br>Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar, <br>Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore: <br>Thy factions, in their worse than civil war, <br>Proscribed the bard whose name forevermore <br>Their children's children would in vain adore <br>With the remorse of ages; and the crown <br>Which Petrarch's laureate brow supremely wore, <br>Upon a far and foreign soil had grown, <br>His life, his fame, his grave, though rifled -- not thine own. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LVIII <br>Boccaccio to his parent earth bequeath'd <br>His dust, -- and lies it not her great among, <br>With many a sweet and solemn requiem breathed <br>O'er him who form'd the Tuscan's siren tongue? <br>That music in itself, whose sounds are song, <br>The poetry of speech? No; -- even his tomb <br>Uptorn, must bear the hyæna bigot's wrong, <br>No more amidst the meaner dead find room, <br>Nor claim a passing sigh, because it told for whom! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LIX <br>And Santa Croce wants their mighty dust; <br>Yet for this want more noted, as of yore <br>The Cæsar's pageant, shorn of Brutus' bust, <br>Did but of Rome's best Son remind her more: <br>Happier Ravenna! on thy hoary shore, <br>Fortress of falling empire! honour'd sleeps <br>The immortal exile; -- Arqua, too her store <br>Of tuneful relics proudly claims and keeps, <br>While Florence vainly begs her banish'd dead and weeps. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LX <br>What is her pyramid of precious stones? <br>Of porphyry, jasper, agate, and all hues <br>Of gem and marble, to encrust the bones <br>Of merchant-dukes? the momentary dews <br>Which, sparkling to the twilight stars, infuse <br>Freshness in the green turf that wraps the dead, <br>Whose names are mausoleums of the Muse, <br>Are gently prest with far more reverent tread <br>Than ever paced the slab which paves the princely head. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXI <br>There be more things to greet the heart and eyes <br>In Arno's dome of Art's most princely shrine, <br>Where Sculpture with her rainbow sister vies; <br>There be more marvels yet -- but not for mine; <br>For I have been accustom'd to entwine <br>My thoughts with Nature rather in the fields, <br>Than Art in galleries; though a work divine <br>Calls for my spirit's homage, yet it yields <br>Less than it feels, because the weapon which it wields </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXII <br>Is of another temper, and I roam <br>By Thrasimene's lake, in the defiles <br>Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home; <br>For there the Carthaginian's warlike wiles <br>Come back before me, as his skill beguiles <br>The host between the mountains the the shore, <br>Where Courage falls in her despairing files, <br>And torrents swoll'n to rivers with their gore, <br>Reek through the sultry plain, with legions scatter'd o'er, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXIII <br>Like to a forest fell'd by mountain winds; <br>And such the storm of battle on this day, <br>And such the frenzy, whose convulsion blinds <br>To all save carnage, that, beneath the fray, <br>An earthquake reel'd unheededly away! <br>None felt stern Nature rocking at his feet, <br>And yawning forth a grave for those who lay <br>Upon their bucklers for a winding-sheet; <br>Such is the absorbing hate when warring nations meet! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXIV <br>The Earth to them was as a rolling bark <br>Which bore them to Eternity; they saw <br>The Ocean round, but had not time to mark <br>The motions of their vessel; Nature's law, <br>In them suspended, reck'd not of the awe <br>Which reigns when mountains tremble, and the birds <br>Plunge in the clouds for refuge, and withdraw <br>From their down-toppling nests; and bellowing herds <br>Stumble o'er heaving plains, and man's dread hath no words. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXV <br>Far other scene is Thrasimene now; <br>Her lake a sheet of silver, and her plain <br>Rent by no ravage save the gentle plough; <br>Her aged trees rise thick as once the slain <br>Lay where their roots are; but a brook hath ta'en -- <br>A little rill of scanty stream and bed -- <br>A name of blood from that day's sanguine rain; <br>And Sanguinetto tells ye where the dead <br>Made the earth wet, and turn'd the unwilling waters red. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXVI <br>But thou, Clitumnus! in thy sweetest wave <br>Of the most living crystal that was e'er <br>The haunt of river nymph, to gaze and lave <br>Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear <br>Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-white steer <br>Grazes; the purest god of gentle waters! <br>And most serene of aspect, and most clear; <br>Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughters, <br>A mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daughters! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXVII <br>And on thy happy shore a Temple still, <br>Of small and delicate proportion, keeps, <br>Upon a mild declivity of hill, <br>Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps <br>Thy current's calmness; oft from out it leaps <br>The finny darter with the glittering scales, <br>Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps; <br>While, chance, some scatter'd waterlily sails <br>Down were the shallower wave still tells its bubbling tales. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXVIII <br>Pass not unblest the Genius of the place! <br>If through the air a zephyr more serene <br>Win to the brow, 'tis his; and if ye trace <br>Along his margin a more eloquent green, <br>If on the heart the freshness of the scene <br>Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust <br>Of weary life a moment lave it clean <br>With Nature's baptism, -- 'tis to him ye must <br>Pay orisons for this suspension of disgust. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXIX <br>The roar of waters! -- from the headlong height <br>Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice; <br>The fall of waters! rapid as the light <br>The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss; <br>The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss, <br>And boil in endless torture; while the sweat <br>Of their great agony, wrung out from this <br>Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet <br>That guard the gulf around, in pitiless horror set, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXX <br>And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again <br>Returns in an unceasing shower, which round, <br>With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain, <br>Is an eternal April to the ground, <br>Making it all one emerald: -- how profound <br>The gulf! and how the giant element <br>From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound, <br>Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent <br>With his fierce footsteps, yields in chasms a fearful vent </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXXI <br>To the broad column which rolls on, and shows <br>More like the fountain of an infant sea <br>Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes <br>Of a new world, than only thus to be <br>Parent of rivers, which glow gushingly, <br>With many windings, through the vale: -- Look back! <br>Lo! where it comes like an eternity, <br>As if to sweep down all things in its track, <br>Charming the eye with dread, -- a matchless cataract, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXXII <br>Horribly beautiful! but on the verge, <br>From side to side, beneath the glittering morn, <br>An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge, <br>Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworn <br>Its steady dyes, while all around is torn <br>By the distracted waters, bears serene <br>Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn: <br>Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene, <br>Love watching Madness with unalterable mien. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXXIII <br>Once more upon the woody Apennine, <br>The infant Alps, which -- had I not before <br>Gazed on their mightier parents, where the pine <br>Sits on more shaggy summits, and where roar <br>The thundering Lauwine -- might be worshipp'd more; <br>But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau rear <br>Her never-trodden snow, and seen the hoar <br>Glaciers of bleak Mont Blanc both far and near, <br>And in Chimari heard the thunder-hills of fear, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXXIV <br>Th' Acroceraunian mountains of old name; <br>And on Parnassus seen the eagles fly <br>Like spirits of the spot, as 'twere for fame, <br>For still they soared unutterably high: <br>I've look'd on Ida with a Trojan's eye; <br>Athos, Olympus, Ætna, Atlas, made <br>These hills seem things of lesser dignity, <br>All, save the lone Soracte's height, display'd <br>Not now in snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXXV <br>For our remembrance, and from out the plain <br>Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break, <br>And on the curl hangs pausing: not in vain <br>May he, who will, his recollections rake, <br>And quote in classic raptures, and awake <br>The hills with Latian echoes; I abhorr'd <br>Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake, <br>The drill'd dull lesson, forced down word by word <br>In my repugnant youth, with pleasure to record </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXXVI <br>Aught that recalls the daily drug which turn'd <br>My sickening memory; and, though Time hath taught <br>My mind to meditate what then it learn'd, <br>Yet such the fix'd inveteracy, wrought <br>By the impatience of my early thought, <br>That with the freshness wearing out before <br>My mind could relish what it might have sought, <br>If free to choose, I cannot now restore <br>Its health; but what it then detested, still abhor. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXXVII <br>Then farewell, Horace; whom I hated so, <br>Not for thy faults, but mine; it is a curse <br>To understand, not feel thy lyric flow, <br>To comprehend, but never love thy verse: <br>Although no deeper Moralist rehearse <br>Our little life, nor Bard prescribe his art, <br>Nor livelier Satirist the conscience pierce, <br>Awakening without wounding the touch'd heart, <br>Yet fare thee well -- upon Soracte's ridge we part. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXXVIII <br>Oh Rome! my country! city of the soul! <br>The orphans of the heart must turn to thee, <br>Lone mother of dead empires! and control <br>In their shut breasts their petty misery. <br>What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see <br>The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way <br>O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye! <br>Whose agonies are evils of day -- <br>A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXXIX <br>The Niobe of nations! there she stands, <br>Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe; <br>An empty urn within her wither'd hands, <br>Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago; <br>The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now; <br>The very sepulchres lie tenantless <br>Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow, <br>Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness? <br>Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXXX <br>The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire, <br>Have dealt upon the seven-hill'd city's pride; <br>She saw her glories star by star expire, <br>And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride, <br>Where the car climb'd the Capitol; far and wide <br>Temple and tower went down, nor left a site: <br>Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void, <br>O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light, <br>And say, 'here was, or is,' where all is doubly night? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXXXI <br>The double night of ages, and of her, <br>Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrap <br>All round us: we but feel our way to err: <br>The ocean hath his chart, and stars their map, <br>And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap; <br>But Rome is as the desert, where we steer <br>Stumbling o'er recollections; now we clap <br>Our hands, and cry 'Eureka!' it is clear -- <br>When but some false mirage or ruin rises near. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXXXII <br>Alas! the lofty city! and alas! <br>The trebly hundred triumphs! and the day <br>When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass <br>The conqueror's sword in bearing fame away! <br>Alas, for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay, <br>And Livy's pictured page! -- but these shall be <br>Her resurrection; all beside -- decay. <br>Alas for Earth, for never shall we see <br>That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was free! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXXXIII <br>O thou, whose chariot roll'd on Fortune's wheel, <br>Triumphant Sylla! Thou, who didst subdue <br>Thy country's foes ere thou wouldst pause to feel <br>The wrath of thy own wrongs, or reap the due <br>Of hoarded vengeance till thine eagles flew <br>O'er prostrate Asia; -- thou, who with thy frown <br>Annihilated senates -- Roman, too. <br>With all thy vices, for thou didst lay down <br>With an atoning smile a more than earthly crown -- </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXXXIV <br>The dictatorial wreath -- couldst thou divine <br>To what would one day dwindle that which made <br>Thee more than mortal? and that so supine <br>By aught than Romans Rome should thus be laid? <br>She who was named Eternal, and array'd <br>Her warriors but to conquer -- she who veil'd <br>Earth with her haughty shadow, and display'd, <br>Until the o'er-canopied horizon fail'd, <br>Her rushing wings -- Oh! she who was Almighty hail'd! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXXXV <br>Sylla was first of victors; but our own, <br>The sagest of usurpers, Cromwell! -- he <br>Too swept off senates while he hew'd the throne <br>Down to a block -- immortal rebel! See <br>What crimes it costs to be a moment free, <br>And famous through all ages! but beneath <br>His fate the moral lurks of destiny; <br>His day of double victory and death <br>Beheld him win two realms, and, happier, yield his breath. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXXXVI <br>The third of the same moon whose former course <br>Had all but crown'd him, on the selfsame day <br>Deposed him gently from his throne of force, <br>And laid him with the earth's preceding clay. <br>And show'd not Fortune thus how fame and sway, <br>And all we deem delightful, and consume <br>Our souls to compass through each arduous way, <br>Are in her eyes less happy than the tomb? <br>Were they but so in man's how different were his doom! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXXXVII <br>And thou, dread statue! yet existent in <br>The austerest form of naked majesty, <br>Thou who beheldest, 'mid the assassins' din, <br>At thy bathed base the bloody Cæsar lie, <br>Folding his robe in dying dignity, <br>An offering to thine altar from the queen <br>Of gods and men, great Nemesis! did he die, <br>And thou, too, perish, Pompey? have ye been <br>Victors of countless kings, or puppets of a scene? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXXXVIII <br>And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome! <br>She-wolf! whose brazen-imaged dugs impart <br>The milk of conquest yet within the dome <br>Where, as a monument of antique art, <br>Thou standest: -- Mother of the mighty heart, <br>Which the great founder suck'd from thy wild teat, <br>Scorch'd by the Roman Jove's ethereal dart, <br>And thy limbs black with lightning -- dost thou yet <br>Guard thine immoral cubs, nor thy fond charge forget? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">LXXXIX <br>Thou dost; but all thy foster-babes are dead -- <br>The men of iron: and the world hath rear'd <br>Cities from out their sepulchres: men bled <br>In imitation of the things they fear'd, <br>And fought and conquer'd, and the same course steer'd, <br>At apish distance; but as yet none have, <br>Nor could the same supremacy have near'd, <br>Save one vain man, who is not in the grave, <br>But, vanquish'd by himself, to his own slaves a slave -- </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XC <br>The fool of false dominion -- and a kind <br>Of bastard Cæsar, following him of old <br>With steps unequal; for the Roman's mind <br>Was modell'd in a less terrestrial mould, <br>With passions fiercer, yet a judgment cold, <br>And an immortal instinct which redeem'd <br>The frailties of a heart so soft, yet bold, <br>Alcides with the distaff now he seem'd <br>At Cleopatra's feet, -- and now himself he beam'd, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XCI <br>And came -- and saw -- and conquer'd ! But the man <br>Who would have tamed his eagles down to flee, <br>Like a train'd falcon, in the Gallic van, <br>Which he, in sooth, long led to victory <br>With a deaf heart, which never seem'd to be <br>A listener to itself, was strangely framed; <br>With but one weakest weakness -- vanity, <br>Coquettish in ambition, still he aim'd -- <br>At what? can he avouch, or answer what he claim'd? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XCII <br>And would be all or nothing -- nor could wait <br>For the sure grave to level him; few years <br>Had fix'd him with the Cæsars in his fate, <br>On whom we tread; for this the conqueror rears <br>The arch of triumph and for this the tears <br>And blood of earth flow on as they have flow'd, <br>An universal deluge, which appears <br>Without an ark for wretched man's abode, <br>And ebbs but to reflow! Renew thy rainbow, God! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XCIII <br>What from this barren being do we reap? <br>Our senses narrow, and our reason frail, <br>Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep, <br>And all things weigh'd in custom's falsest scale; <br>Opinion an omnipotence, -- whose veil <br>Mantles the earth with darkness, until right <br>And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale <br>Lest their own judgments should become too bright, <br>And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have too much light. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XCIV <br>And thus they plod in sluggish misery, <br>Rotting from sire to son, and age to age, <br>Proud of their trampled nature, and so die, <br>Bequeathing their hereditary rage <br>To the new race of inborn slaves, who wage <br>War for their chains, and rather than be free, <br>Bleed gladiator-like, and still engage <br>Within the same arena where they see <br>Their fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XCV <br>I speak not of men's creeds -- they rest between <br>Man and his Maker -- but of things allow'd, <br>Averr'd, and known, and daily, hourly seen -- <br>The yoke that is upon us doubly bow'd, <br>And the intent of tyranny avow'd, <br>The edict of Earth's rulers, who are grown <br>The apes of him who humbled once the proud, <br>And shook them from their slumbers on the throne: <br>Too glorious, were this all his mighty arm had done. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XCVI <br>Can tyrants but by tyrants conquer'd be, <br>And Freedom find no champion and no child <br>Such as Columbia saw arise when she <br>Sprung forth a Pallas, arm'd and undefiled? <br>Or must such minds be nourish'd in the wild, <br>Deep in the unpruned forest, 'midst the roar <br>Of cataracts, where nursing Nature smiled <br>On infant Washington? Has Earth no more <br>Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no such shore? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XCVII <br>But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime, <br>And fatal have her Saturnalia been <br>To Freedom's cause, in every age an clime; <br>Because the deadly days which we have seen, <br>And vile Ambition, that built up between <br>Man and his hopes an adamantine wall, <br>And the base pageant last upon the scene, <br>Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrall <br>Which nips life's tree, and dooms man's worst -- his second fall. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XCVIII <br>Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying, <br>Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind; <br>Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying, <br>The loudest still the tempest leaves behind; <br>Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind, <br>Chopp'd by the axe, looks rough and little worth, <br>But the sap lasts, -- and still the seed we find <br>Sown deep, even in the bosom of the North; <br>So shall a better spring less better fruit bring forth. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XCIX <br>There is a stern round tower of other days, <br>Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone, <br>Such as an army's baffled strength delays, <br>Standing with half its battlements alone, <br>And with two thousand years of ivy grown, <br>The garland of eternity, where wave <br>The green leaves over all by time o'er thrown; -- <br>Where was this tower of strength? within its case <br>What treasure lay, so lock'd, so hid? -- A woman's grave. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">C <br>But who was she, the lady of the dead, <br>Tomb'd in a palace? Was she chaste and fair? <br>Worthy a king's, or more -- a Roman's bed? <br>What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear? <br>What daughter of her beauties was she heir? <br>How lived, how loved, how died she? Was she not <br>So honoured -- and conspicuously there, <br>Where meaner relics must not dare to rot, <br>Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CI <br>Was she as those who love their lords, or they <br>Who love the lords of others? such have been <br>Even in the olden time, Rome's annals say. <br>Was she a matron of Cornelia's mien, <br>Or the light air of Egypt's graceful queen, <br>Profuse of joy -- or 'gainst it did she war <br>Inveterate in virtue? Did she lean <br>To the soft side of the heart, or wisely bar <br>Love from amongst her griefs? -- for such the affections are. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CII <br>Perchance she died in youth: it may be, bow'd <br>With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb <br>That weigh'd upon her gentle dust, a cloud <br>Might gather o'er her beauty, and a gloom <br>In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom <br>Heaven gives its favourites -- early death; yet shed <br>A sunset charm around her, and illume <br>With hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead, <br>Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaf-like red. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CIII <br>Perchance she died in age -- surviving all, <br>Charms, kindred, children -- with the silver gray <br>On her long tresses, which might yet recall, <br>It may be, still a something of the day <br>When they were braided, and her proud array <br>And lovely form were envied, praised, and eyed <br>By Rome -- But whither would Conjecture stray? <br>Thus much alone we know -- Metella died, <br>The wealthiest Roman's wife: Behold his love or pride! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CIV <br>I know not why -- but standing thus by thee <br>It seems as if I had thine inmate known, <br>Thou Tomb! and other days come back on me <br>With recollected music, though the tone <br>Is changed and solemn, like the cloudy groan <br>Of dying thunder on the distant wind; <br>Yet could I set me by this ivied stone <br>Till I had bodied forth the heated mind, <br>Forms from the floating wreck which Ruin leaves behind; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CV <br>And from the planks, far shatter'd o'er the rocks, <br>Built me a little bark of hope, once more <br>To battle with the ocean and the shocks <br>Of the loud breakers, and the ceaseless roar <br>Which rushes on the solitary shore <br>Where all lies founder'd that was ever dear: <br>But could I gather from the wave-worn store <br>Enough for my rude boat, where should I steer? <br>There woos no home, nor hope, nor life, save what is here. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CVI <br>Then let the winds howl on! their harmony <br>Shall henceforth be my music, and the night <br>The sound shall temper with the owlets' cry, <br>As I now hear them, in the fading light <br>Dim o'er the bird of darkness' native site, <br>Answering each other on the Palatine, <br>With their large eyes, all glistening gray and bright, <br>And sailing pinions. -- Upon such a shrine <br>What are our petty griefs? -- let me not number mine. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CVII <br>Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grown, <br>Matted and mass'd together, hillocks heap'd <br>On what were chambers, arch crush'd, column strown <br>In fragments, choked up vaults, and frescos steep'd <br>In subterranean damps, where the owl peep'd, <br>Deeming it midnight: -- Temples, baths, or halls? <br>Pronounce who can; for all that Learning reap'd <br>From her research hath been, that these are walls -- <br>Behold thee Imperial Mount! 'tis thus the mighty falls. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CVIII <br>There is the moral of all human tales; <br>'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past, <br>First Freedom, and then Glory -- when that fails, <br>Wealth, vice , corruption, -- barbarism at last. <br>And History, with all her volumes vast, <br>Hath but one page, -- 'tis better written here <br>Where gorgeous Tyranny hath thus amass'd <br>All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear, <br>Heart, soul, could seek, tongue ask -- Away with words! draw near, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CIX <br>Admire, exult, despise, laugh, weep, -- for here <br>There is such matter for all feeling: -- Man! <br>Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear, <br>Ages and realms are crowded in this span, <br>This mountain, whose obliterated plan <br>The pyramid of empires pinnacled, <br>Of Glory's gewgaws shining in the van <br>Till the sun's rays with added flame were fill'd! <br>Where are its golden roofs? where those who dared to build? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CX <br>Tully was not so eloquent as thou, <br>Thou nameless column with the buried base! <br>What are the laurels of the Cæsar's brow? <br>Crown me with ivy from his dwelling-place. <br>Whose arch or pillar meets me in the face, <br>Titus or Trajan's? No -- 'tis that of Time: <br>Triumph, arch, pillar, all he doth displace <br>Scoffing; and apostolic statues climb <br>To crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXI <br>Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome, <br>And looking to the stars; they had contain'd <br>A spirit which with thee would find a home, <br>The last of those who o'er the whole earth reign'd, <br>The Roman globe, for after none sustain'd, <br>But yielded back his conquests: -- he was more <br>Than a mere Alexander, and unstain'd <br>With household blood and wine, serenely wore <br>His sovereign virtues -- still we Trajan's name adore. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXII <br>Where is the rock of Triumph, the high place <br>Where Rome embraced her heroes? where the steep <br>Tarpeian? fittest goal of Treason's race, <br>The promontory whence the Traitor's Leap <br>Cured all ambition. Did the conquerors heap <br>Their spoils here? Yes; and in yon field below, <br>A thousand years of silenced faction sleep -- <br>The Forum, where the immortal accents glow, <br>And still the eloquent air breathes -- burns with Cicero! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXIII <br>The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood: <br>Here a proud people's passions were exhaled, <br>From the first hour of empire in the bud <br>To that when further worlds to conquer fail'd; <br>But long before had Freedom's face been veil'd, <br>And Anarchy assumed her attributes; <br>Till every lawless soldier who assail'd <br>Trod on the trembling senate's slavish mutes, <br>Or raised the venal voice of baser prostitutes. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXIV <br>Then turn we to her latest tribune's name, <br>From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee, <br>Redeemer of dark centuries of shame -- <br>The friend of Petrarch -- hope of Italy -- <br>Rienzi! last of Romans! While the tree <br>Of freedom's wither'd trunk puts forth a leaf <br>Even for thy tomb a garland let it be -- <br>The forum's champion, and the people's chief -- <br>Her new-born Numa thou -- with reign, alas! too brief. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXV <br>Egeria! sweet creation of some heart <br>Which found no mortal resting-place so fair <br>As thine ideal breast; whate'er thou art <br>Or wert, -- a young Aurora of the air, <br>The nympholepsy of some fond despair; <br>Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth, <br>Who found a more than common votary there <br>Too much adoring; whatsoe'er thy birth, <br>Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXVI <br>The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled <br>With thine Elysian water-drops; the face <br>Of thy cave-guarded spring with years unwrinkled, <br>Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place, <br>Whose green, wild margin now no more erase <br>Art's works; nor must the delicate waters sleep, <br>Prison'd in marble -- bubbling from the base <br>Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap <br>The rill runs o'er -- and round -- fern, flowers, and ivy creep, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXVII <br>Fantastically tangled: the green hills <br>Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass <br>The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills <br>Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass; <br>Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class, <br>Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes, <br>Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass; <br>The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes, <br>Kiss'd by the breath of heaven, seems colour'd by its skies. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXVIII <br>Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover, <br>Egeria! thy all heavenly bosom beating <br>For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover; <br>The purple Midnight veil'd that mystic meeting <br>With her most starry canopy, and seating <br>Thyself by thine adorer, what befell? <br>This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting <br>Of an enamour'd Goddess, and the cell <br>Haunted by holy Love -- the earliest oracle! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXIX <br>And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying, <br>Blend a celestial with a human heart; <br>And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing, <br>Share with immortal transports? could thine art <br>Make them indeed immortal, and impart <br>The purity of heaven to earthly joys, <br>Expel the venom and not blunt the dart -- <br>The dull satiety which all destroys -- <br>And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXX <br>Alas! our young affections run to waste, <br>Or water but the desert; whence arise <br>But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste, <br>Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes, <br>Flowers whose wild odours breathe but agonies, <br>And trees whose gums are poisons; such the plants <br>Which spring beneath her steps as Passion flies <br>O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants <br>For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXXI <br>Oh, Love! no habitant of earth thou art -- <br>An unseen seraph, we believe in thee, -- <br>A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart, -- <br>But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see <br>The naked eye, thy form, as it should be; <br>The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven, <br>Even with its own desiring phantasy, <br>And to a thought such shape and image given, <br>As haunts the unquench'd soul -- parch'd, wearied, wrung, and riven. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXXII <br>Of its own beauty is the mind diseased, <br>And fevers into false creation: -- where, <br>Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seiz'd? <br>In him alone. Can Nature show so fair? <br>Where are the charms and virtues which we dare <br>Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men, <br>The unreach'd Paradise of our despair, <br>Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen, <br>And overpowers the page where it would bloom again? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXXIII <br>Who loves, raves -- 'tis youth's frenzy -- but the cure <br>Is bitterer still, as charm by charm unwinds <br>Which robed our idols, and we see too sure <br>Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's <br>Ideal shape of such; yet still it binds <br>The fatal spell, and still it draws us on, <br>Reaping the whirlwind from the oftsown winds; <br>The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun, <br>Seems ever near the prize -- wealthiest when most undone. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXXIV <br>We wither from our youth, we gasp away -- <br>Sick -- sick; unfound the boon, unslaked the thirst, <br>Though to the last, in verge of our decay, <br>Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first -- <br>But all too late, -- so are we doubly curst. <br>Love, fame, ambition, avarice -- 'tis the same, <br>Each idle, and all ill, and none the worst -- <br>For we all are meteors with a different name, <br>And Death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXXV <br>Few -- none -- find what they love or could have loved, <br>Though accident, blind contact, and the strong <br>Necessity of loving, have removed <br>Antipathies -- but to recur, ere long, <br>Envenom'd with irrevocable wrong; <br>And Circumstance, that unspiritual god <br>And miscreator, makes and helps along <br>Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod, <br>Whose touch turns Hope to dust, -- the dust we all have trod. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXXVI <br>Our life is a false nature: 'tis not in <br>The harmony of things, -- this hard decree, <br>This uneradicable taint of sin <br>This boundless upas, this all-blasting tree, <br>Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be <br>The skies which rain their plagues on men like dew -- <br>Disease, death, bondage -- all the woes we see, <br>And worse, the woes we see not -- which throb through <br>The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXXVII <br>Yet let us ponder boldly -- 'tis a base <br>Abandonment of reason to resign <br>Our right of thought -- our last and only place <br>Of refuge; this, at least, shall still be mine: <br>Though from our birth the faculty divine <br>Is chain'd and tortured -- cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, <br>And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shine <br>Too brightly on the unpreparèd mind, <br>The beam pours in, for time and skill will couch the blind. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXXVIII <br>Arches on arches! as it were that Rome, <br>Collecting the chief trophies of her line, <br>Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, <br>Her coliseum stands; the moonbeams shine <br>As 'twere its natural torches, for divine <br>Should be the light which streams here to illume <br>This long-explored but still exhaustless mine <br>Of contemplation; and the azure gloom <br>Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXXIX <br>Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven, <br>Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument, <br>And shadows forth its glory. There is given <br>Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent <br>A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant <br>His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power <br>And magic in the ruin'd battlement, <br>For which the palace of the present hour <br>Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXXX <br>Oh Time! the beautifier of the dead, <br>Adorner of the ruin, comforter <br>And only healer when the heart hath bled; <br>Time! the corrector where our judgments err, <br>The test of truth, love, -- sole philosopher, <br>For all beside are sophists -- from thy thrift, <br>Which never loses though it doth defer -- <br>Time, the avenger! unto thee I lift <br>My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift: </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXXXI <br>Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine <br>And temple more divinely desolate, <br>Among thy mightier offerings here are mine, <br>Ruins of years, though few, yet full of fate: <br>If thou hast ever seen me too elate, <br>Hear me not; but if calmly I have borne <br>Good, and reserved my pride against the hate <br>Which shall not whelm me, let me not have worn <br>This iron in my soul in vain -- shall they not mourn? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXXXII <br>And thou, who never yet of human wrong <br>Left the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis! <br>Here, where the ancient paid thee homage long -- <br>Thou who didst call the Furies from the abyss, <br>And round Orestes bade them howl and hiss <br>For that unnatural retribution -- just, <br>Had it but been from hands less near -- in this <br>Thy former realm, I call thee from the dust! <br>Dost thou not hear my heart? -- Awake! thou shalt, and must. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXXXIII <br>It is not that I may not have incurr'd <br>For my ancestral faults or mine the wound <br>I bleed withal, and, had it been conferr'd <br>With a just weapon, it had flow'd unbound; <br>But now my blood shall not sink in the ground; <br>To thee I do devote it. -- thou shalt take <br>The vengeance, which shall yet be sought and found, <br>Which if I have not taken for the sake -- <br>But let that pass -- I sleep, but thou shalt yet awake. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXXXIV <br>And if my voice break forth, 'tis not that now <br>I shrink from what is suffer'd: let him speak <br>Who hath beheld decline upon my brow, <br>Or seen my mind's convulsion leave it weak; <br>But in this page a record will I seek. <br>Not in the air shall these my words disperse, <br>Though I be ashes; a far hour shall wreak <br>The deep prophetic fulness of this verse, <br>And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXXXV <br>That curse shall be Forgiveness. -- Have I not -- <br>Hear me, my mother Earth! behold it, Heaven! <br>Have I not had to wrestle with my lot? <br>Have I not suffer'd things to be forgiven? <br>Have I not had my brain sear'd, my heart riven, <br>Hopes sapp'd, name blighted, Life's life lied away? <br>And only not to desperation driven, <br>Because not altogether of such clay <br>As rots into the souls of those whom I survey. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXXXVI <br>From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy <br>Have I not seen what human things could do? <br>From the loud roar of foaming calumny <br>To the small whisper of the as paltry few, <br>And subtler venom of the reptile crew, <br>The Janus glance of whose significant eye, <br>Learning to lie with silence, would seem true, <br>And without utterance, save the shrug or sign, <br>Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXXXVII <br>But I have lived, and have not lived in vain: <br>My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire, <br>And my frame perish even in conquering pain; <br>But there is that within me which shall tire <br>Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire; <br>Something unearthly, which they deem not of, <br>Like the remember'd tone of a mute lyre, <br>Shall on their soften'd spirits sink, and move <br>In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXXXVIII <br>The seal is set. -- Now welcome, thou dread power! <br>Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here <br>Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight hour <br>With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear; <br>Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear <br>Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene <br>Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear <br>That we become a part of what has been, <br>And grow unto the spot, all-seeing but unseen. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXXXIX <br>And here the buzz of eager nations ran, <br>In murmur'd pity, or loud-roar'd applause, <br>As man was slaughter'd by his fellow-man. <br>And wherefore slaughter'd? wherefore, but because <br>Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws, <br>And the imperial pleasure. -- Wherefore not? <br>What matters where we fall to fill the maws <br>Of worms -- on battle-plains or listed spot? <br>Both are but theatres -- where the chief actors rot. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">CXL <br>I see before me the Gladiator lie: <br>He leans upon his hand -- his manly brow <br>Consents to death, but conquers agony, <br>And his droop'd head sinks gradually low -- <br>And through hi</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Byron">Byron</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=396058" data-title="Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: A Romaunt. Canto IV. de Byron" data-description="I.
I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; 
A palace and a prison on each hand: 
I saw from out the wave her structures rise 
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: 
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand 
Around me, and a dying Glory ..."></div>
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