by Byron
Perchance even dearer in her day of woe,
Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show.
XIX
I can repeople with the past – and of
The present there is still for eye and thought,
165
And meditation chasten’d down, enough;
And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought;
And of the happiest moments which were wrought
Within the web of my existence, some
From thee, fair Venice! have their colours caught:
170
There are some feelings Time cannot benumb,
Nor Torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb.
XX
But from their nature will the tannen grow1
Loftiest on loftiest and least shelter’d rocks,
Rooted in barrenness, where nought below
175
Of soil supports them ’gainst the Alpine shocks
Of eddying storms; yet springs the trunk, and mocks
The howling tempest, till its height and frame
Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks
Of bleak, gray granite into life it came,
180
And grew a giant tree; – the mind may grow the same.
XXI
Existence may be borne, and the deep root
Of life and sufferance make its firm abode
In bare and desolated bosoms: mute
The camel labours with the heaviest load,
185
And the wolf dies in silence, – not bestow’d
In vain should such example be; if they,
Things of ignoble or of savage mood,
Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay
May temper it to bear, – it is but for a day.
XXII
190
All suffering doth destroy, or is destroy’d,
Even by the sufferer; and, in each event,
Ends: – Some, with hope replenish’d and rebuoy’d,
Return to whence they came – with like intent,
And weave their web again; some, bow’d and bent,
195
Wax gray and ghastly, withering ere their time,
And perish with the reed on which they leant;
Some seek devotion, toil, war, good or crime,
According as their souls were form’d to sink or climb:
XXIII
But ever and anon of griefs subdued
200
There comes a token like a scorpion’s sting,
Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued;
And slight withal may be the things which bring
Back on the heart the weight which it would fling
Aside for ever: it may be a sound –
205
A tone of music – summers eve – or spring –
A flower – the wind – the ocean – which shall wound,
Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound;
XXIV
And how and why we know not, nor can trace
Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind,
210
But feel the shock renew’d, nor can efface
The blight and blackening which it leaves behind,
Which out of things familiar, undesign’d,
When least we deem of such calls up to view
The spectres whom no exorcism can bind,
215
The cold — the changed — perchance the dead — anew,
The mourn’d, the loved, the lost – too many! – yet how few!
Xxv
But my soul wanders; I demand it back
To meditate amongst decay, and stand
A ruin amidst ruins; there to track
220
Fall’n states and buried greatness, o’er a land
Which was the mightiest in its old command,
And is the loveliest, and must ever be
The master-mould of Nature’s heavenly hand,
Wherein were cast the heroic and the free,
225
The beautiful, the brave – the lords of earth and sea,
XXVI
The commonwealth of kings, the men of Rome!
And even since, and now fair Italy!
Thou art the garden of the world, the home
Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree;
230
Even in thy desert, what is like to thee?
Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste
More rich than other climes’ fertility;
Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced
With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced.
XXVII
235
The moon is up, and yet it is not night –
Sunset divides the sky with her – a sea
Of glory streams along the Alpine height
Of blue Friuli’s mountains; Heaven is free
From clouds, but of all colours seems to be
240
Melted to one vast Iris of the West,
Where the Day joins the past Eternity;
While, on the other hand, meek Dian’s crest
Floats through the azure air – an island of the blest!1
XXVIII
A single star is at her side, and reigns
245
With her o’er half the lovely heaven; but still
Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains
Roll’d o’er the peak of the far Rhaetian hill,
As Day and Night contending were, until
Nature reclaim’d her order: – gently flows
250
The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil
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,
255
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
260
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
265
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
270
With his melodious tears, he gave himself to fame.
XXXI
They keep his dust in Arqua, where he died;
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,
275
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.
XXXII
280
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,
285
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,
290
And shining in the brawling brook, whereby,
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,
295
’Tis solitude should teach us how to die;
It hath no flatterers; vanity can give
No hollow aid; alone – man with his God must strive:
XXXIV
Or, it may be, with demons, who impair1
The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey
300
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;
305
Making the sun like blood, the earth a tomb,
The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom.
XXXV
Ferrara! in thy wide and grass-grown streets,
Whose symmetry was not for solitude,
There seems as ’twere a curse upon the seats
310
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
315
The wreath which Dante’s brow alone had worn before.
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:
320
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
325
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
330
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 madest to mourn:
XXXVIII
Thou! form’d to eat, and be despised, and die,
335
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,
340
And Boileau, whose rash envy could allow
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
345
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
350
Compose a mind like thine? though all in one
Condensed their scatter’d rays, they would not form a sun.
XL
Great as thou art, yet parallel’d by those,
Thy countrymen, before thee born to shine,
The Bards of Hell and Chivalry: first rose
355
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,
360
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
365
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
370
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.
375
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,
380
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
385
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
XLIV
Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him,2
The Roman friend of Rome’s least-mortal mind
390
The friend of Tully: as my bark did skim
The bright blue waters with a fanning wind,
Came Megara before me, and behind
Ægina lay, Piræus on the right,
And Corinth on the left; I lay reclined
395
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
400
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
405
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
410
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,1
Wrecks of another worl
d, whose ashes still are warm.
XLVII
415
Yet, Italy! through every other land
Thy wrongs should ring, and shall, from side to side;
Mother of Arts! as once of arms; thy hand
Was then our guardian, and is still our guide;
Parent of our Religion! whom the wide
420
Nations have knelt to for the keys of heaven!
Europe, repentant of her parricide,
Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven,
Roll the barbarian tide, and sue to be forgiven.
XLVIII
But Arno wins us to the fair white walls,
425
Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps
A softer feeling for her fairy halls.
Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps
Her corn, and wine and oil, and Plenty leaps
To laughing life, with her redundant horn.
430
Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps
Was modern Luxury of Commerce born,
And buried Learning rose, redeem’d to a new morn.
XLIX
There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills
The air around with beauty; we inhale
435
The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils
Part of its immortality; the veil
Of heaven is half undrawn; within the pale
We stand and in that form and face behold
What mind can make, when Nature’s self would fail;
440
And to the fond idolaters of old
Envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould:
L
We gaze and turn away, and know not where,
Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart
Reels with its fulness; there – for ever there -
445
Chain’d to the chariot of triumphal Art,
We stand as captives, and would not depart.
Away! – there need no words, nor terms precise,
The paltry jargon of the marble mart,
Where Pedantry gulls Folly – we have eyes:
450
Blood – pulse – and breast, confirm the Dardan Shepherd’s prize.
LI
Appear’dst thou not to Paris in this guise?
Or to more deeply blest Anchises? or,
In all thy perfect goddess-ship, when lies
Before thee thy own vanquish’d Lord of War?
455
And gazing in thy face as toward a star,
Laid on thy lap, his eyes to thee upturn,
Feeding on thy sweet cheek!1 while thy lips are
With lava kisses melting while they burn,
Shower’d on his eyelids, brow, and mouth, as from an urn!
LII
460
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
465