Part 4

Dauntless Italian! why dost thou not rest From waking in the tomb Our old forefathers? And why bid them hold Discourse unto this age so lost in gloom Of worn exhaustion? Wherefore, voice of old, Appealest thou so often to our ears, For centuries though dumb? What is the reason of this mighty change? As rapidly as lightning's flash, the page Of sages we discover; to these years The dusty treasures come, Bearing enshrined the glorious wisdom's range Of those ancestral minds. What daring rage Doth Fate give to thy soul, Italia's pride? Or is it Fate who vainly human worth defied? Truly, it is by Heaven's high design That in this hour when we Are most oblivious of our old renown, We should the ghosts of our forefathers see, Who on the baseness of their offspring frown. Kind Heaven still has mercy on our land, And seeks Italia's weal: For either this or none must be the hour To give unto our shattered virtue strength, Which long beneath a sable shade did stand; And lo! the tombs reveal The buried who cry out; in mightier power, The long-forgotten heroes rise at length, And of this period so remote they ask If thou, my country, still must wear a coward's mask? Thou glorious throng! dost thou for us yet cherish A ray of hope? nor void Are we of worth? To you, perchance, doth show The future what it brings? I am destroyed, Nor have I any weapon 'gainst my woe; Dark are the years to come; and what I see Is such that hope appears An idle dream. Heroic souls august! Within your homes a mob obscure and vile Hath made its dwelling; by your progeny In these disastrous years All good is scorned; your old renown so just Kindles nor love nor shame; and follies while Our days away at your proud marble's base, And we to future times are patterns of disgrace. Thou noble mind! Now whilst the others heed not Our parents of the past, 'Tis thine to heed, to whom Fate did inspire Such favoured thoughts that by thy hand recast Appears the time[1] when from oblivion dire Their laurelled brows the old immortals raised, With learning long enshrined, They, to whom Nature spoke full many a word Without revealing where her being lay, And who in Athens and in Rome were praised. Oh times, so long declined In sleep eternal! Then was not yet heard Our country's final doom; nor every ray Was spent of indignation at our shame, And on the wind some sparks from this our soil yet came. Thy hallowed ashes harboured latent heat, Foe, nevermore resigned, Of Fortune, thou to whose indignant smart Much more dark Hell than this our world was kind;[2] Hell: and where shall we fail to see a part Better than ours? And thy sweet-toned chords Yet sounded to thy skill, O tuneful lover, in thy love much tried![3] Alas! from woe Italian song doth take Its origin. And yet our woe affords Less cause for grievous ill Than weariness. O thou beatified, Whose life was full of sorrow! But we make Ourselves the prey of drear, fastidious scorn, Our cradles and our graves thereby become forlorn. Then was thy life with the ocean and the stars. Thou dauntless Genoese![4] When past Alcides' pillars and the shore That feigned to hear the hissing of the seas As sank the sun to rest, thou, 'mid the roar Of wild waves cast, discoveredst the ray Of the declining sun, The dawn that blushes when we find the shade, And overcamest Nature's wrathful frown. An unknown mighty land was to thy way The matchless glory won, The perilous return! Alas! once made The circuit of the world, it dwindles down, And vaster far the earth, the sea, the sky, Appeareth to a child's, than to a wise man's, eye. Where is the pleasing beauty of our dreams Of the abode unknown Of races strange, or of the stars' retreat, When glared the morn, or of the couch where shone Aurora's beauty, or where chargers fleet Did bear the chariot of the orb of day? They vanished for all time! The world is compassed in a narrow round: All things are like; the more we shades dispel, The more the void increaseth. Gone for aye, Imagining sublime, Art thou from us; though truth be scarcely found, We bid thee an eternal fare-thee-well; Thy former power is shattered by the years, And the last comfort dieth of our woes and fears. Meanwhile, for sweetest visions wast thou born, And radiance fired thine eyes, Prevailing bard[5] of valour and love's joy That in an age less full than ours of sighs With happy errors banished life's annoy: New hope of Italy! O halls! O towers! O ladies fair! O knights! O palaces! O gardens! Full of ye, My mind is lost within a varied maze Of vain enchantments. Fiction's fragrant flowers And Fancy's daring flights Were balm of yore to human misery: Now we have driven them from our vision's gaze, What is the end? Now that all things are plain? The certain truth to know that all, save grief, is vain. Torquato! O Torquato![6] Heaven then gave To us thy lofty mind, To thee nought else than agony and tears. O thou unblessed Torquato! couldst thou find Solace in song? The icy chill of fears That froze the daring ardour of thy soul, Which Tyranny did grieve, And Envy, nought could banish. Love betrayed, Love, last delusion of our earthly life, Thy injured heart. An empty waste the whole Vast world thou didst conceive To be, and Vacancy a queenly shade; Thine eyes were closed when tardy praise was rife. To thee thy final hour gave balm. He prays For death, who knows our ills, and not for glorious bays. Return, return to us; arise from thy Cold grave disconsolate, If yet thou lovest grief, O much deplored Example of deep woe. Worse is our fate Than that which did unto thy heart afford Such cause for long lament. O thou endeared! Who would thy doom bemoan, If, save themselves, for nothing else men care? Who would not scorn on thy great sorrow cast, If all that greatness and ambition reared Be held as Folly's own? If now obscure neglect fall to the share Of the sublime, as envy in the past, If higher than song we sordid grasping place, Who would a second time thy brow with laurels grace? From thee, until this hour, no man arose, Thou prey to Fortune's rage, Worthy of the Italian name, save one alone,[7] Alone superior to his craven age, Ferocious Allobrogue; to whom was shown Heroic fire from regions of the skies, Not from the barren soil Of this our weary land; whence, without shield, Upon the stage on tyrants he waged war, A memorable and a rare emprise! This war, at least, be foil To fruitless wrath, and some frail comfort yield. He stood, the only champion, to the fore: None followed him, for sloth and silence vile, More than all other things, the hearts of men defile. With scorn and indignation he pursued His life august and grand, And death preserved him from beholding worse. O my Vittorio! this was not a land Or age for thee; a loftier race should nurse Illustrious minds. Now we, who nothing heed Save dull repose, live bound By mediocrity; the learned fall, The rabble rises to an equal plain, Making the world as one. Oh, still proceed, Discoverer renowned, To rouse the dead from their funereal pall, Because the living slumber; make again Old heroes speak, so that this age at last May rise to glorious deeds, or blush for errors past.

[Footnote 1: The Renaissance.]

[Footnote 2: Dante.]

[Footnote 3: Petrarch.]

[Footnote 4: Columbus.]

[Footnote 5: Ariosto.]

[Footnote 6: Tasso.]

[Footnote 7: Alfieri.]

ON THE MARRIAGE OF HIS SISTER PAOLINA.

Now that thy home thou leavest, Its happy silence and serene repose, And the ancient error which from Heaven flows, Adorning in thy sight this lone abode, By Fortune led upon the scene of life: Become acquainted with the evil age Which destiny devoteth to our years, My sister, who in times Of strife, dismay, and fears, Proceedest to increase the ill-starred race Of hapless Italy. Great models place Before thine offspring. An unswerving doom To virtuous enterprise Unclouded days denies, Nor in a bosom faint can lofty soul find room. Unhappy or else craven Shall be thy sons. Then nobly choose the first. A mighty gulf hath evil custom set 'Twixt bravery and fortune. Ah! too slow, And in the sunset of terrestrial things, Doth man begin to suffer and to know. Heaven see'th why. The thought unto thee brings Its first solicitude, That not in Fortune's net Thy sons shall fall, nor be to terror low, Or hope the wretched tools: thence to be hailed Happy and blessed in the future far: For such the habits are Of our ignoble race, That living worth we scorn, and dead in honour place. Our fatherland, O women! Expecteth much from ye; and not to harm Our humankind, lurks in your eyes such charm That it transcends the power of fire and steel. To gain your praise, the warrior and the sage Labour and think. Where'er the sun doth shine, We see all things your mighty influence feel. Of you the cause I ask Why sank so low our age? Did by your deed the fire of youth divine Languish and die? By you, our nature made So shattered and so base? Our slumbering souls, Our will to shame betrayed, Our native valour spent: Must we for these on you our indignation vent? Love leads to mighty actions, Who knows him well; and of emotions vast Is Beauty the inspirer. Void of love Is he who feeleth no impassioned fire When storms terrific raise their wrathful blast, When sable clouds are darkly seen above, And mountains tremble at their frenzy dire. O wives and virgins fair! From you scorn be his share Who shuns the path of danger; who ignores His country's claim, unworthy; who adores A lowly idol in his recreant mind; If in your hearts you find The love of men doth glow And not of those who ever trivial fancy show. Scorn to be named the mothers Of an unwarlike race. The trials deep Of virtue let your offspring learn to bear, And in the bondage of contempt to keep Whate'er is honoured by this shameful age. Bid them rise to great actions. Make them know What this our land doth to its fathers owe. Even as the heroes' name Was held in honoured fame By Sparta's sons as they increased in years, Until their spouses girded on their sword, And then their death in anguish deep deplored, And rent their hair with tears When from the gory field The warrior was brought home upon his faithful shield. With heavenly skill, Virginia, Did all-prevailing beauty mould thy form, And thy disdain made Rome's ignoble lord In tempests of fierce passion rage and storm. Yes, thou wast fair, and in those happy years When pleasing dreams joy to the soul afford, What time thy father's unrelenting sword Thy snowy bosom pierced, And thou to Hades dark Didst gladly sink. "May age with wrinkles mark My features, O my father! May the tomb Await me with its everlasting gloom, Ere to the tyrant's bed A victim I be led. Slay me, if Rome be rescued by the blood I shed." O maiden lofty-hearted! Though in thy days the sun more brightly shone Than now it shines, yet honoured and consoled Thy tomb becomes, bewailed by many a moan, Thy native country's sighs. Ah, now, behold! The race of Romulus with new-born ire Is fired around thy tomb. See, tyrants sink Unto the very dust, And freedom doth inspire The once oblivious hearts; and o'er the earth Subdued, the Latin valour doth proceed From the dark pole even to the torrid clime: And thus eternal Rome, Of languor deep the home, Doth Fate, by woman's hand, revive a second time.

THE SOLILOQUY OF BRUTUS.

After the carnage of the Thracian plain, Where in vast ruins fell The strength of Roman freedom, whence one day Ausonia's valleys and the Tiber's banks Should tremble at barbarian foes' affray By Fortune's doom, and from the rugged woods Of distant regions cold, To desolate the lofty walls of Rome Should Gothic hordes proceed: O'ercome and crimsoned with fraternal gore, Brutus, in shadow of the lonely night, Resolved by self-directed sword to bleed, The inexorable Gods And cruel fate defies, Filling in vain the air with his impassioned cries: "O idle virtue! In the realms of gloom, Haunt of the unquiet shades, Thy dwelling lies; thy footsteps are pursued By vain repentance. Ye unfeeling Gods, (If Phlegethon's dark torrents are imbued With knowledge of your presence, or the skies) You mock the wretched race From whom you temples claim. Decrees of fraud Insult our humankind. So much the sorrow of terrestrial things Moves heavenly wrath? Say, Jupiter, art thou Enthroned the guardian of the evil mind? When storms terrific rave And thunder rumbles wide, Dost on the just and pious thou the lightning guide? "Unbending Fate! Necessity austere Crushes with heavy yoke The slaves of death; and if without an end They see their ills, the thought consoles them still That such must be. But doth woe less offend When without balm? Doth he feel less of pain Who is despoiled of hope? An everlasting war, O ruthless Fate! On thee the brave man wages Who knows not how to yield; thy tyrant soul, When thou, victorious, overwhelmest him, With exultation o'er thy victim rages, What time his heart august The fatal sword receives, And he with mockery spurns the base abode he leaves. "He who to Hades takes a violent way Doth rouse the gods to ire. Such strength lies not in soft, eternal souls. Stern Fate, perchance, our labours and our cares, Our bitter fortunes that Despair controls, Unto their leisure for amusement gave? Not amid woe and guilt, But in the woods, a free and spotless age Did Nature to us give, Our Goddess once and Queen. Now that undone By impious custom is the blissful reign, And 'neath strange laws we unrejoicing live: When these disastrous days A dauntless soul doth spurn, Should Nature, to accuse a shaft not hers, return? "Of guilt unconscious and of their distress, The happy beasts are led By Time serenely to the end ignored. But if 'gainst rugged trees their heads to strike, Or from the summit, where the wild winds roared, Of rocky mountains to hurl down their frame, They were by grief advised: To their desire no stern refusal harsh Would laws mysterious make Or doubtful minds. Its joys from you alone Of all the creatures by the earth brought forth, Sons of Prometheus, did existence take: From you the shades of death, When Fate of wrath gives proof, Alone from you, ye wretched, Jove doth hold aloof. "Thou art arising from the ocean-wave That reddened with our gore, To gaze, fair moon, on the unquiet night And plain so fatal to Ausonian strength. Their slaughtered kinsmen meet the conquerors' sight; The mountains tremble; from her pride's august Doth ancient Rome decline: And thou art so unmoved? Thou didst behold Lavinia's race, the years Of dazzling glory, and the laurels proud; And on the Alps thy never-varying ray Thou still wilt shed when 'mid the grief and tears Of Italy enslaved, Her solitary ground Unto barbarians' tread shall mournfully resound. "'Mid naked rocks, or on the verdant trees, Behold, the beasts and birds, Lost in the oblivion they forever bore, Remain unconscious of the ruin Vast And of the shattered world; and as of yore The peasant's roof shall redden to the sun, And with their morning lay The birds awake the valleys, and the speed Of fiercer beasts pursue The less resisting over hill and dale. Oh Fate! Oh idle race! an abject part We are of nature; not the caves that knew The sound of sighs, nor glebes Drenched in our gore, display Compassion for our grief, nor stars endim their ray. "The unheeding Kings of Heaven and Hell Or of the unworthy earth, Or night, in dying I do not invoke; Nor ye, last radiance of the shades of death, Ye future ages. Who the gloom e'er broke Of haughty tombs, with praise, and sighs, and gifts Of crowds ignoble? Worse The years become; and in an evil guard The honour of the brave And their last vindication lies, when left To their degenerate sons. Upon my corpse May birds of prey in famished fury rave, And wild beasts rend my limbs, And what remains be dust, And to the air be left my name and memory just."

TO SPRING;

OR,

THE FABLES OF ANTIQUITY.

Because the sun restores Its beauty to the sky, and airs revive At Zephyr's breath, whence heavy clouds retire, Divided in their shadows deep and grey: The birds their pinions trust Unto the breeze, and the diurnal ray Doth give new hope of love and new desire To happy beasts amid the dews dissolved, Amid the forests filled with joyous light: Perchance unto the weary minds of men, In graves of woe entombed, Returns the happy age, by grief and dire Torches of truth consumed Before its time? Darkened for aye and spent Are not Heaven's rays for him to anguish doomed Through Time's eternal flight? And, odorous Spring, art thou on firing bent, This frozen heart, to whom hath long been told Even in the flower of life, that it is worn and old? Dost thou still live, divine Nature, still live? And the unaccustomed ear Receives the sound of the maternal voice? The streams were haunts of spotless nymphs erewhile Abodes and mirrors clear Were liquid springs. The secret dances strange Of feet immortal, shook the wild ravine And wood remote (where now the fierce winds range, Deserted else); and the mild shepherd heard, When guiding to meridian shades beside The flowery river bank, His thirsty flock, a piercing lay proceed From sylvan deities' reed, Resounding far: and witnessed with amaze The waters quake; for veiled from mortal gaze, The Goddess of the bow Sank in the warm stream of the flood below, And from the dust of the ensanguined chase Her snowy limbs did cleanse and arms of virgin grace. In happier days of yore The flowers, the herbs, the forests were alive. The firmament, the Titan of the light, Were conscious of mankind; o'er hill and vale When shone thy silver beam, O radiant Cynthia! in the lonely night With orbs intent thy brow the wanderer sought, And thee his path's companion he did deem, And fancied we were cherished in thy thought. If man from factions of fierce cities fled And from disastrous strife, Seeking for refuge mid the mighty trees Of deepest forest lone: He thought that fire ran through their arid veins, That foliage breathed; and quivering in the embrace Full of delicious pains, Daphne and Phyllis, or the wailing moan For him who in Eridanus was cast By fury of the Sun, he heard upon the blast. Nor piercing wail and sighs Of human woe, ye rocks of rigid height, Struck you, unfeeling, whilst lone Echo dwelt In your recesses of alarming night: No error of vain wind, But wretched spirit of a nymph in tears, Of mortal shape despoiled by ruthless Fate And cruel Love. She, 'mid the grottos blind And naked crags and dwellings desolate, The loud complaining of our woes and fears To the imprisoned air Revealed and taught. And thee in earthly deed Well versed did Fame declare, Sweet-throated warbler in the leafy wood Who now dost praise the infant year with song, Lamenting once the wrong That made thy spirit with deep anguish bleed, In notes sublime unto the darkening sky, At which for pity and rage light did from Heaven fly. But not to ours allied Is now thy race; those varied notes of thine Pain mellows not; and thee, unstained by guilt, Much less endeared, the dusky valleys hide. Alas! now that divine Olympus mourns its empty halls; and wide The thunder wanders o'er the cloud-capped peaks, In sightless rage the noble and the base Appalling with its rumbling; and our soil, Unconscious of the offspring it doth feed, Brings forth its sons for moyle: Thou the deep anguish and the fate obscure Of mortals dost endure, O wondrous Nature! Thou the ancient spark Art kindling in my soul, if thou indeed Livest; if aught there be In Heaven above, or on the sunny earth, Or in the bosom of the azure main, To gaze, even though unpitying, on terrestrial pain.

HYMN TO THE PATRIARCHS.

And you the song of unrejoicing sons, Ye lofty fathers of the human race, Shall celebrate with praise; ye far more dear Unto the eternal Ruler of the stars, And much less sorrowing brought unto the light Sublime than we. Not piety and not The laws of Heaven imposed the unceasing ills That now afflict mankind, for sorrow born, And destined to discover greater joy In the nocturnal shadows of the tomb Than in the radiance of the orb of day. And if an ancient legend still doth tell The story of your ancient error dire That yielded man unto the tyranny Of suffering and grief; the guilt more fell, The more unquiet minds and frenzy fierce Of your descendants made the injured skies And Nature, in return for all her cares Spumed and neglected, feel indignant wrath: From which the fire of life a curse received, And mothers trembled at the load they bore, And Hell itself was imaged on the earth.