XLV. For Time hath not rebuilt them, but uprear'd Which only make more mourn'd and more endear'd 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 Of perish'd states he mourn'd in their decline, Of them destruction is; and now, alas! Wrecks of another world, whose ashes still are warm. XLVII. Yet, Italy through every other land Thy wrongs should ring, and shall, from side to side; Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven, XLVIII. But Arno wins us to the fair white walls, Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps Her corn, and wine, and oil, and Plenty leaps XLIX. There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils Of heaven is half undrawn; within the pale What Mind can make, when Nature's self would fail; Envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould: We gaze and turn away, L. and know not where, Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart We stand as captives, and would not depart. Where Pedantry gulls Folly-we have eyes: Blood-pulse-and breast, confirm the Dardan Shepherd's prize. LI. Appear'dst thou not to Paris in this guise? Shower'd on his eyelids, brow, and mouth, as from an urn! LII. Glowing, and circumfused in speechless love, Their full divinity inadequate That feeling to express, or to improve, The gods become as mortals, and man's fate Has moments like their brightest; but the weight Of earth recoils upon us ;-let it go! We can recall such visions, and create, From what has been, or might be, things which grow Into thy statue's form, and look like gods below. LIII. I leave to learned fingers, and wise hands, I would not their vile breath should crisp the stream The unruffled mirror of the loveliest dream That ever left the sky on the deep soul to beam. LIV. In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie Ashes which make it holier, dust which is Though there were nothing save the past, and this, Which have relapsed to chaos:—here repose The starry Galileo, with his woes; Here Machiavelli's earth return'd to whence it rose. LV. These are four minds, which, like the elements, Might furnish forth creation :—Italy! Time, which hath wrong'd thee with ten thousand rents Of thine imperial garment, shall deny, And hath denied, to every other sky, Spirits which soar from ruin :—thy decay Is still impregnant with divinity, Which gilds it with revivifying ray ; Such as the great of yore, Canova is to-day. LVI. But where repose the all Etruscan three- Of the Hundred Tales of love-where did they lay ? LVII. Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar, His life, his fame, his grave, though rifled-not thine own. LVIII. Boccaccio to his parent earth bequeath'd His dust, and lies it not her Great among, LIX. And Santa Croce wants their mighty dust; While Florence vainly begs her banish'd dead and weeps. |