Lord Byron - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Byron

  But is not Doria’s menace come to pass?

  Are they not bridled? – Venice, lost and won,

  Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done,

  Sinks, like a seaweed, into whence she rose!

  Better be whelmed beneath the waves, and shun,

  Even in Destruction’s depth, her foreign foes,

  From whom submission wrings an infamous repose.

  XIV.

  In youth she was all glory, – a new Tyre, –

  Her very byword sprung from victory,

  The ‘Planter of the Lion,’ which through fire

  And blood she bore o’er subject earth and sea;

  Though making many slaves, herself still free

  And Europe’s bulwark ‘gainst the Ottomite:

  Witness Troy’s rival, Candia! Vouch it, ye

  Immortal waves that saw Lepanto’s fight!

  For ye are names no time nor tyranny can blight.

  XV.

  Statues of glass – all shivered – the long file

  Of her dead doges are declined to dust;

  But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile

  Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust;

  Their sceptre broken, and their sword in rust,

  Have yielded to the stranger: empty halls,

  Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must

  Too oft remind her who and what enthrals,

  Have flung a desolate cloud o’er Venice’ lovely walls.

  XVI.

  When Athens’ armies fell at Syracuse,

  And fettered thousands bore the yoke of war,

  Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse,

  Her voice their only ransom from afar:

  See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car

  Of the o’ermastered victor stops, the reins

  Fall from his hands – his idle scimitar

  Starts from its belt – he rends his captive’s chains,

  And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains.

  XVII.

  Thus, Venice, if no stronger claim were thine,

  Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot,

  Thy choral memory of the bard divine,

  Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot

  Which ties thee to thy tyrants; and thy lot

  Is shameful to the nations, – most of all,

  Albion! to thee: the Ocean Queen should not

  Abandon Ocean’s children; in the fall

  Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall.

  XVIII.

  I loved her from my boyhood: she to me

  Was as a fairy city of the heart,

  Rising like water-columns from the sea,

  Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart

  And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakspeare’s art,

  Had stamped her image in me, and e’en so,

  Although I found her thus, we did not part,

  Perchance e’en 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,

  And meditation chastened 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:

  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 grow

  Loftiest on loftiest and least sheltered rocks,

  Rooted in barrenness, where nought below

  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, grey granite, into life it came,

  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 desolate bosoms: mute

  The camel labours with the heaviest load,

  And the wolf dies in silence. Not bestowed

  In vain should such examples 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.

  All suffering doth destroy, or is destroyed,

  Even by the sufferer; and, in each event,

  Ends: – Some, with hope replenished and rebuoyed,

  Return to whence they came – with like intent,

  And weave their web again; some, bowed and bent,

  Wax grey 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 formed to sink or climb.

  XXIII.

  But ever and anon of griefs subdued

  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 –

  A tone of music – summer’s 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,

  But feel the shock renewed, nor can efface

  The blight and blackening which it leaves behind,

  Which out of things familiar, undesigned,

  When least we deem of such, calls up to view

  The spectres whom no exorcism can bind, –

  The cold – the changed – perchance the dead – anew,

  The mourned, 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

  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,

  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;

  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.

  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 –

  Melted to one vast Iris of the West,

  Where the day joins the past eternity;

  While, on the other hand, meek Dian’s crest

  Float
s through the azure air – an island of the blest!

  XXVIII.

  A single star is at her side, and reigns

  With her o’er half the lovely heaven; but still

  Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains

  Rolled o’er the peak of the far Rhætian hill,

  As Day and Night contending were, until

  Nature reclaimed her order: – gently flows

  The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil

  The odorous purple of a new-born rose,

  Which streams upon her stream, and glassed within it glows,

  XXIX.

  Filled 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 grey.

  XXX.

  There is a tomb in Arqua; – reared in air,

  Pillared 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

  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,

  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 formed his monumental fane.

  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 decayed

  In the deep umbrage of a green hill’s shade,

  Which shows a distant prospect far away

  Of busy cities, now in vain displayed,

  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; vanity can give

  No hollow aid; alone – 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.

  XXXV.

  Ferrara! in thy wide and grass-grown streets,

  Whose symmetry was not for solitude,

  There seems as ‘twere a curse upon the seat’s

  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 impelled, of those who wore

  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 earned 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

  Scattered 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! formed 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 furrowed brow,

  Which emanated then, and dazzles now

  In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire,

  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

  Aimed with their poisoned arrows – but to miss.

  Oh, victor unsurpassed 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 scattered rays, they would not form a sun.

  XL.

  Great as thou art, yet paralleled 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 called 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 mimicked leaves;

  Nor was the ominous element unjust,

  For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves

  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! O 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 ploughed 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 rig
ht, and awe the robbers back, who press

  To shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy distress;

  XLIII.

  Then mightst thou more appal; or, less desired,

  Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored

  For thy destructive charms; then, still untired,

  Would not be seen the armèd torrents poured

  Down the deep Alps; nor would the hostile horde

  Of many-nationed spoilers from the Po

  Quaff blood and water; nor the stranger’s sword

  Be thy sad weapon of defence, and so,

  Victor or vanquished, thou the slave of friend or foe.

  XLIV.

  Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him,

  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

  Ægina 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 upreared

  Barbaric dwellings on their shattered site,

  Which only make more mourned and more endeared

  The few last rays of their far-scattered light,

  And the crushed relics of their vanished 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 perished states he mourned 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,

  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;

  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

  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,

  Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps

  A softer feeling for her fairy halls.

  Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps