XXVIII.

A single star is at her side, and reigns
With her o'er half the lovely heaven; but såll (')
Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains
Roll'd o'er the peak of the far Rhætian hill,
As Day and Night contending were, until
Nature reclaim'd her order :-gently flows
The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instill
The odorous purple of a new-born rose,

Which streams upon her stream, and glass'd within it glows,

XXIX.

Fill'd with the face of heaven, which, from afar ;
Comes down upon the waters; all its hues,
From the rich sunset to the rising star,
Their magical variety diffuse :

And now they change; a paler shadow strews
Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting day
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues
With a new colour as it gasps away,

The last still loveliest, till 'tis gone--and all is gray.

XXX.

There is a tomb in Arqua ;-rear'd in air,
Pillar'd in their sarcophagus, repose
The bones of Laura's lover: here repair
Many familiar with his well-sung woes,
The pilgrims of his genius. He arose
To raise a language, and his land reclaim
From the dull yoke of her barbaric foes:
Watering the tree which bears his lady's name (2)
With his melodious tears, he gave himself to fame.

XXXI.

They keep his dust in Arqua, where he died; (3)
The mountain-village where his latter days
Went down the vale of years; and 'tis their pride-
An honest pride and let it be their praise,
To offer to the passing stranger's gaze
His mansion and his sepulchre; both plain
And venerably simple, such as raise

A feeling more accordant with his strain

Than if a pyramid form'd his monumental fane.

(1) The above description may seem fantastical or exaggerated to those who have never seen an Oriental or an Italian sky, yet it is but a literal and hardly sufficient delineation of an August evening (the eighteenth) as contemplated in one of many rides along the banks of the Brenta near La Mira.

(2, 3) Suo" Historical Notes," Nos. VIII. and IX.

XXXII.

And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt
Is one of that complexion which seems made
For those who their mortality have felt,

And sought a refuge from their hopes decay'd
In the deep umbrage of a green hill's shade,
Which shows a distant prospect far away
Of busy cities, now in vain display'd,
For they can lure no further; and the ray
Of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday,

XXXIII.

Developing the mountains, leaves, and flowers,
And shining in the brawling brook, where-by,
Clear as its current, glide the sauntering hours
With a calm languor, which, though to the eye
Idlesse it seem, hath its morality.

If from society we learn to live,

'Tis solitude should teach us how to die;

It hath no flatterers;

No hollow aid; alone

vanity can give

man with his God must strive :

XXXIV.

Or, it may be, with demons, who impair (')

The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey
In melancholy bosoms, such as were

Of moody texture from their earliest day,
And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay,
Deeming themselves predestined to a doom
Which is not of the pangs that pass away;
Making the sun like blood, the earth a tomb,
The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom.

Ferrara! in thy wide and grass-grown streets,
Whose symmetry was not for solitude,
There seems as 'twere a curse upon the seats
Of former sovereigns, and the antique brood
Of Este, which for many an age made good
Its strength within thy walls, and was of yore
Patron or tyrant, as the changing mood
Of petty power impell'd, of those who wore

The wreath which Dante's brow alone had worn before.

(1) The struggle is to the full as likely to be with demons as with our better thoughts. Satan chose the wilderness for the temptation of our Saviour. And our unsullied John Locke preferred the presence of a child to complete solitude.

XXXVI.

And Tasso is their glory and their shame.
Hark to his strain! and then survey his cell!
And see how dearly earn'd Torquato's fame,
And where Alfonso bade his poet dwell:
The miserable despot could not quell

The insulted mind he sought to quench, and blend
With the surrounding maniacs, in the hell

Where he had plunged it. Glory without end
Scatter'd the clouds away
and on that name attend

XXXVII.

The tears and praises of all time; while thine
Would rot in its oblivion — in the sink
Of worthless dust, which from thy boasted line
Is shaken into nothing; but the link

Thou formest in his fortunes bids us think
Of thy poor malice, naming thee with scorn
Alfonso! how thy ducal pageants shrink
From thee! if in another station born,

Scarce fit to be the slave of him thou mad'st to mourn:

XXXVIII.

Thou! form'd to eat, and be despised, and die,
Even as the beasts that perish, save that thou
Hadst a more splendid trough and wider sty:
He! with a glory round his furrow'd brow,
Which emanated then, and dazzles now,
In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire,
And Boileau, whose rash envy could allow (1)
No strain which shamed his country's creaking lyre,
That whetstone of the teeth-monotony in wire !

XXXIX.

Peace to Torquato's injured shade! 'twas his
In life and death to be the mark where Wrong
Aim'd with her poison'd arrows, but to miss.
Oh, victor unsurpass'd in modern song!
Each year brings forth its millions; but how long
The tide of generations shall roll on,

And not the whole combined and countless throng Compose a mind like thine? though all in one Condensed their scatter'd rays, they would not form a sun.

(1) See" Historical Notes," at the end of this canto, No. X.

XI..

Great as thou art, yet parallel'd by those,
Thy countrymen, before thee born to shine,
The Bards of Hell and Chivalry; first rose
The Tuscan father's comedy divine ;
Then not unequal to the Florentine,

The southern Scott, the minstrel who call'd forth
A new creation with his magic line,

And, like the Ariosto of the North,

Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightly worth.

XLI.

The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust (')
The iron crown of laurel's mimic'd leaves;
Nor was the ominous element unjust,

For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves (2)
Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves,

And the false semblance but disgraced his brow;
Yet still, if fondly Superstition grieves,

Know, that the lightning sanctifies below (")

Whate'er it strikes;

yon head is doubly sacred now.

XLII.

Italia! oh Italia! thou who hast (*)

The fatal gift of beauty, which became

A funeral dower of present woes and past,
On thy sweet brow is sorrow plough'd by shame,
And annals graved in characters of flame.
Oh, God! that thou wert in thy nakedness
Less lovely or more powerful, and couldst claim
Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press
To shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy distress;

XLIII.

Then might'st thou more appal; or, less desired,
Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored

For thy destructive charms; then, still untired,
Would not be seen the armed torrents pour'd
Down the deep Alps; nor would the hostile horde
Of many-nation'd spoilers from the Po

Quaff blood and water; nor the stranger's sword
Be thy sad weapon of defence, and so,

Victor or vanquish'd, thou the slave of friend or foe.

(1, 2, 3) Sce" Historical Notes," at the end of this canto, Nos. XI. XII. XIII. (4) The two stanzas, XLII. XLIII., are, with the exception of a line or twc, a translation of the famous sonnet of Filicaja :

"Italia, Italia, O'tu cui feo la sorte!"

XLIV.

Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him, (1)
The Roman friend of Rome's least mortal-mind,
The friend of Tully: as my bark did skim
The bright blue waters with a fanning wind,
Came Megara before me, and behind
Egina lay, Piræus on the right,

And Corinth on the left; I lay reclined
Along the prow, and saw all these unite

In ruin, even as he had seen the desolate sight;

XLV.

For Time hath not rebuilt them, but uprear'd
Barbaric dwellings on their shatter'd site,

Which only make more mourn'd and more endear'd'
The few last rays of their far-scatter'd light,
And the crush'd relics of their vanish'd might.
The Roman saw these tombs in his own age,
These sepulchres of cities, which excite,
Sad wonder, and his yet surviving page

The moral lesson bears, drawn from such pilgrimage.

XLVI.

That page is now before me, and on mine
His country's ruin added to the mass
Of perish'd states he mourn'd in their decline,
And I in desolation: all that was

Of then destruction is; and now, alas!

Rome

Rome imperial, bows her to the storm,

In the same dust and blackness, and we pass

The skeleton of her Titanic form, (3).

Wrecks of another world, whose ashes still are warm.

(1) The celebrated letter of Servius Sulpicius to Cicero on the death of his daughter, describes as it then was, and now is, a path which I often traced in Greece, both by sea and land, in different journeys and voyages.

"On ny return from Asia, as I was sailing from Ægina towards Megara, I began to contemplate the prospect of the countries around me: gina was behind, Megara before me; Piræus on the right, Corinth on the left; all which towns, once famous and flourshing, now lie overturned and buried in their ruins. Upon this sight, I could not but think presently within myself, Alas! how do we poor mortals fret and vex ourselves if any of our friends happen to die or be killed, whose life is yet so short, when the carcasses of so many noble cities lie here exposed before me in one view."Dr. Middleton-History of the Life of M. Tullius Cicero, sect. vii. p. 371. vol. ii.

(2) It is Poggio, who, looking from the Capitoline hill upon ruined Rome, breaks forth into the exclamation, " Ut nunc omni decore nudata, prostrata jacet, instar gigantei cadavoris corrupti atque undique excsi.-De fortune varietate urbis Rome, et de ruinis ejusdem descriptio, ap. Sallengre, Thesaur. tom. i. p. 501.