Sha!! foreign standard to thy walls advance, But Tiber shall become a mournful river.

Oh! when the strangers pass the Alps and Po, Crush them, ye rocks! floods, whelm them, and for ever!

Why sleep the idle avalanches so,

To topple on the lonely pilgrim's head?
Why doth Eridanus but overflow
The peasant's harvest from his turbid bed?

Were not each barbarous horde a nobler prey!
Over Cambyses' host the desert spread
ller sandy ocean, and the sea waves' sway

Roll'd over Pharaoh and his thousands,-why,
Mountains and waters, do ye not as they?
And you, ye men! Romans, who dare not die,
Sons of the conquerors who overthrew

Those who overthrew proud Xerxes, where yet lie
The dead whose tomb oblivion never knew,
Are the Alps weaker than Thermopyle?
Their passes more alluring to the view
Of an invader? is it they, or ye

free?

That to each host the mountain-gate unbar,
And leave the march in peace, the passage
Why, nature's self detains the victor's car,
And makes your land impregnable, if earth
Could be so: but alone she will not war,
Yet aids the warrior worthy of his birth,

In a soil where the mothers bring forth men!
No so with those whose souls are little worth;
For them no fortress can avail,-the den

Of the poor reptile which preserves its sting
Is more secure than walls of adamant, when

The hearts of those within are quivering.

Are ye not brave? Yes, yet the Ausonian soil Hath hearts, and hands, and arms, and hosts to bring Against oppression; but how vain the toil,

While still division sows the seeds of woe

And weakness, till the stranger reaps the spoil.
Oh! my own beauteous land! so long laid low,

So long the grave of thy own children's hopes,
When there is but required a single blow
To break the chain, yet-yet the avenger stops,

And doubt and discord step 'twixt thine and thee, And join their strength to that which with thee copes: What is there wanting then to set thee free,

And show thy beauty in its fullest light?
To make the Alps impassable; and we,
Her sous, may do this with one deed--Unite!

CANTO III.

FROM out the mass of never dying ill,

The plague, the prince, the stranger, and the sword, Vials of wrath but emptied to refill

And flow again, I caunot all record

That crowds on my prophetic eye: the earth And ocean written o'er would not afford Space for the annal, yet it shall go forth;

Yes, all, though not by humau pen, is graven, There where the farthest suns and stars have birth. Spread like a banner at the gate of heaven,

The bloody scroll of our millennial wrongs Waves, and the echo of our groans is driven Athwart the sound of archangelic songs,

And Italy, the martyr'd nation's gore, Will not in vain arise to where belongs Omnipotence and mercy evermore;

Like to a harp-string stricken by the wind,
The sound of her lament shall, rising o'er
The seraph voices, touch the Almighty Mind.
Meantime I, humblest of thy sons, and of
Earth's dust by immortality refined

To sense and suffering, though the vain may scoff,
And tyrants threat, and meeker victims bow
Before the storm because its breath is rough,
To thee, my country! whom before as now,
I loved and love, devote the mournful lyre
And melancholy gift high powers allow
To read the future; and if now my fire

Is not as once it shone o'er thee, forgive!
I but foretel thy fortunes-then expire;
Think not that I would look on them and live.
A spirit forces me to see and speak,
And for my guerdon grants not to survive;
My heart shall be pour'd over thee and break:
Yet for a moment, ere I must resume
Thy sable web of sorrow, let me take
Over the gleams that flash athwart thy gloom

A softer glimpse; some stars shine through thy night,
And many meteors, and above thy tomb
Leans sculptured beauty, which death cannot blight;
And from thine ashes boundless spirits rise
To give thee honour and the earth delight;
Thy soil shall still be pregnant with the wise,

The gay, the learn'd, the generous, and the brave,
Native to thee as summer to thy skies,
Conquerors on foreign shores and the far wave,7
Discoverers of new worlds, which take their name;
For thee alone they have no arm to save,
And all thy recompense is in their fame,

A noble one to them, but not to thee-
Shall they be glorious, and thou still the same?
Oh! more than these illustrious far shall be
The being-and even yet he may be born-
The mortal saviour who shall set thee free,
And see thy diadem, so changed and worn
By fresh barbarians, on thy brow replaced;
And the sweet sun replenishing thy morn,
Thy moral morn, too long with clouds defaced
And noxious vapours from Avernus risen,
Such as all they must breathe who are debased
By servitude, and have the mind in prison.

Yet through this centuried eclipse of woe

Some voices shall be heard, and earth shall listen; Poets shall follow in the path I show,

And make it broader; the same brilliant sky
Which cheers the birds to song shall bid them glow.
And raise their notes as natural and high;

Tuneful shall be their numbers: they shall sing
Many of love, and some of liberty,

But few shall soar upon that eagle's wing,
And look in the sun's face with eagle's gare
All free and fearless as the feather'd king,

But fly more near the earth; how many a phrase
Sublime shall lavish'd be on some small prince
In all the prodigality of praise!

And language, eloquently false, evince

The harlotry of genius, which, like beauty,

Too oft forgets its own self-reverence,

And looks on prostitution as a duty.

He who once enters in a tyrant's hall 9

As guest is slave, his thoughts become a booty,
And the first day which sees the chain enthral
A captive, sees his half of manhood gone-10
The soul's emasculation saddens all

Ilis spirit; thus the bard too near the throne

Quails from his inspiration, bound to please,—
How servile is the task to please alone!
To smooth the verse to suit his sovereign's ease
And royal leisure, nor too much prolong
Aught save his eulogy, and find, and seize,
Or force or forge fit argument of song!

Thus trammell'd, thus condemn'd to flattery's trebles,
He toils through all, still trembling to be wrong:
For fear some noble thoughts, like heavenly rebels,
Should rise up in high treason to his brain,
He sings, as the Athenian spoke, with pebbles

In 's mouth, lest truth should stammer through his

strain.

But out of the long file of sonnetteers

There shall be some who will not sing in vain, And he, their prince, shall rank among my peers,11 And love shall be his torment; but his grief Shall make an immortality of tears,

And Italy shall hail him as the chief

Of poet lovers, and his higher song

Of freedom wreathe him with as green a leaf.

But in a farther age shall rise along

The banks of Po, two greater still than he;

The world which smiled on him shall do them wrong

Till they are ashes and repose with ine.

The first will make an epoch with his lyre, And fill the earth with feats of chivalry: His fancy like a rainbow, and his fire,

Like that of heaven, immortal, and his thought
Borne onward with a wing that cannot tire;
Pleasure shall, like a butterfly new caught,
Flutter her lovely pinions o'er his theme,
And art itself seem into nature wrought
By the transparency of his bright dream.—
The second, of a tenderer, sadder mood,
Shall pour his soul out o'er Jerusalem;
He, too, shall sing of arms, and christian blood
Shed where Christ bled for man; and his high harp
Shall, by the willow over Jordan's flood,

Revive a song of Sion, and the sharp
Conflict, and final triumph of the brave
And pious, and the strife of hell to warp
Their hearts from their great purpose, until wave
The red-cross banners where the first red cross
Was crimson'd from his veins who died to save,
Shall be his sacred argument; the loss

Of years, of favour, freedom, even of fame
Contested for a time, while the smooth gloss
Of courts would slide o'er his forgotten name,
And call captivity a kindness, meant
To shield him from insanity or shame;
Such shall be his meet guerdon! who was sent
To be Christ's laureate-they reward him well!
Florence dooms me but death or banishment,
Ferrara him a pittance and a cell,

Harder to bear and less deserved, for I

Had stung the factions which I strove to quell;
But this meek man, who with a lover's eye

Will look on earth and heaven, and who will deign
To embalm with his celestial flattery

As poor a thing as e'er was spawn'd to reign,
What will he do to merit such a doom?
Perhaps he 'll love,-and is not love in vain
Torture enough without a living tomb?
Yet it will be so-he and his compeer,

In

The Bard of Chivalry, will both consume

penury and pain too many a year,

And, dying in despondency, bequeath

To the kind world, which scarce will yield a tear,

A heritage enriching all who breathe

With the wealth of a genuine poet's soul, And to their country a redoubled wreath, Unmatch'd by time; not Hellas can unrol

Through her olympiads two such names, though one
Of hers be mighty;-and is this the whole

Of such men's destiny beneath the sun?
Must all the finer thoughts, the thrilling sense,
The electric blood with which their arteries run,
Their body's self-turn'd soul with the intense

Feeling of that which is, and fancy of

That which should be, to such a recompense
Conduct? shall their bright plumage on the rough
Storm be still scatter'd? Yes, and it must be.
For, form'd of far too penetrable stuff,
These birds of paradise but long to flee

Back to their native mansion; soon they find
Earth's mist with their pure pinions not agree,
And die, or are degraded, for the mind

Succumbs to long infection, and despair, And vulture passions, flying close behind, Await the moment to assail and tear;

And when at length the winged wanderers stoop, Then is the prey-birds' triumph, then they share The spoil, o'erpower'd at length by one fell swoop. Yet some have been untouch'd, who learn'd to bear, Some whom no power could ever force to droop, Who could resist themselves even, hardest care!

And task most hopeless; but some such have been, And if my name amongst the number were, That destiny austere, and yet serene,

Were prouder than more dazzling fame unblest; The Alp's snow summit nearer heaven is seen Than the volcano's fierce eruptive crest,

Whose splendour from the black abyss is flung, While the scorch'd mountain, from whose burning breast

A temporary torturing flame is wrung,
Shines for a night of terror, then repels

Its fire back to the hell from whence it sprung,
The hell which in its entrails ever dwells.

CANTO IV.

MANY are poets who have never penn'd

Their inspiration, and perchance the best:
They felt, and loved, and died, but would not lend
Their thoughts to meaner beings; they compress'd
The god within them, and rejoin'd the stars
Unlaurell'd upon earth, but far more blest
Than those who are degraded by the jars

Of passion, and their frailties link'd to fame,
Conquerors of high renown, but full of scars.
Many are poets but without the name;
For what is poesy but to create

From overfeeling good or ill; and aim At an external life beyond our fate,

And be the new Prometheus of new men,
Bestowing fire from heaven, and then, too late,
Finding the pleasure given repaid with pain,
And vultures to the heart of the bestower,
Who, having lavish'd his high gift in vain,
Lies chain'd to his lone rock by the sea-shore?

So be it; we can bear.-But thus all they,
Whose intellect is an o'ermastering power,
Which still recoils from its encumbering clay,
Or lightens it to spirit, whatsoe'er

The form which their creations may essay, Are bards; the kindled marble's bust may wear More poesy upon its speaking brow

Than aught less than the Homeric page may bear; One noble stroke with a whole life may glow, Or deify the canvas till it shine

With beauty so surpassing all below,
That they who kneel to idols so divine

Break no commandment, for high heaven is there
Transfused, transfigurated: and the line

Of poesy which peoples but the air

With thought and beings of our thought reflected, Can do no more: then let the artist share The palm, he shares the peril, and dejected

Faints o'er the labour unapproved-Alas!
Despair and genius are too oft connected.
Within the ages which before me pass,

Art shall resume and equal even the sway
Which with Apelles and old Phidias
She held in Hellas' unforgotten day.

Ye shall be taught by ruin to revive

The Grecian forms at least from their decay, And Roman souls at last again shall live

In Roman works wrought by Italian hands,
And temples, loftier than the old temples, give
New wonders to the world; and while still stands
The austere Pantheon, into heaven shall soar
A dome,12 its image, while the base expands
Into a fane surpassing all before,

Such as all flesh shall flock to kneel in: ne'er
Such sight hath been unfolded by a door
As this, to which all nations shall repair

And lay their sins at this huge gate of heaven.
And the bold architect unto whose care
The daring charge to raise it shall be given,
Whom all arts shall acknowledge as their lord,
Whether into the marble chaos driven
His chisel bid the Hebrew, 13 at whose word
Israel left Egypt, stop the waves in stone,
Or hues of hell be by his pencil pour'd
Over the damn'd before the Judgment throne, 14
Such as I saw them, such as all shall see,

Or fanes be built of grandeur yet unknown,
The stream of his great thoughts shall spring from me,15
The Ghibelline, who traversed the three realms
Which form the empire of eternity.

Amidst the clash of swords and clang of helms,
The age which I anticipate, no less
Shall be the age of beauty, and while whelms
Calamity the nations with distress,

The genius of my country shall arise,
A cedar towering o'er the wilderness.
Lovely in all its branches to all eyes,

Fragrant as fair, and recognized afar,

Wafting its native incense through the skies.
Sovereigns shall pause amidst their sport of war,
Wean'd for an hour from blood, to turn and gaze
On canvas or on stone; and they who mar
All beauty upon earth, compell'd to praise,
Shall feel the power of that which they destroy;
And art's mistaken gratitude shall raise

To tyrants who but take her for a toy
Emblems and monuments, and prostitute
Her charms to pontiffs proud, 16 who but employ
The man of genius as the meanest brute

To bear a burthen, and to serve a need.

To sell his labours, and his soul to boot: Who toils for nations may be poor indeed

But free; who sweats for monarchs is no more Than the gilt chamberlain, who, clothed and fee'd, Stands sleek and slavish bowing at his door.

Oh, Power that rulest and inspirest! how
Is it that they on earth, whose earthly power
Is likest thine in heaven in outward show,
Least like to thee in attributes divine,
Tread on the universal necks that bow,
And then assure us that their rights are thine?
And how is it that they, the sons of fame,
Whose inspiration seems to them to shine
From high, they whom the nations oftest name,
Must pass their days in penury or pain,
Or step to grandeur through the paths of shame,
And wear a deeper brand and gaudier chain?
Or if their destiny be borne aloof
From lowliness, or tempted thence in vain,
In their own souls sustain a harder proof,

The inner war of passions deep and fierce?
Florence! when thy harsh sentence razed my roof,
I loved thee, but the vengeance of my verse,
The hate of injuries, which every year
Makes greater and accumulates my curse,
Shall live, outliving all thou holdest dear,

Thy pride, thy wealth, thy freedom, and even that, The most infernal of all evils here,

The sway of petty tyrants in a state;

For such sway is not limited to kings,
And demagogues yield to them but in date

As swept off sooner; in all deadly things

Which make men hate themselves, and one another, In discord, cowardice, cruelty, all that springs From Death the Sin-born's incest with his mother, In rank oppression in its rudest shape, The faction chief is but the sultan's brother, And the worst despot's far less human ape: Florence! when this lone spirit, which so long Yearn'd as the captive toiling at escape, To fly back to thee in despite of wrong, An exile, saddest of all prisoners, Who has the whole world for a dungeon strong, Seas, mountains, and the horizon's verge for bars, Which shut him from the sole small spot of earth Where-whatsoe'er his fate-he still were hers, His country's, and might die where he had birthFlorence when this lone spirit shall return To kindred spirits, thou wilt feel my worth, And seek to honour with an empty urn

The ashes thou shalt ne'er obtain.-Alas!

« What have I done to thee, my people?» 17 Stern

Are all thy dealings, but in this they pass
The limits of man's common malice, for

Michel Angiolo's, that he had designed the whole of the Divina Commedia ; but that the volume containing these studies was lost by sea.

Note 16. Page 462, line 76.

Her charms to pontiffs proad, who but employ, etc.

Note 17. Page 462, line 130.
What have I done to thee, my people?

« E scrisse più volte non solamente a particolari cittadini del reggimento, ma ancora al popolo, e intra l'altre, una epistola assai lunga che comincia :-< Popule mi

Vita di Dante scritta da Lionardo Aretino.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE foundation of the following story will be found partly in the account of the Mutiny of the Bounty, in the South Seas, in 1789, and partly in « Mariner's Account of the Tonga Islands.»>

THE ISLAND.

I.

the vessel lay

THE morning watch was come;
Her course, and gently made her liquid way;
The cloven billow flash'd from off her prow
In furrows form'd by that majestic plough;
The waters with their world were all before;
Behind, the South Sea's many an islet shore.
The quiet night, now dappling, 'gan to wane,
Dividing darkness from the dawning main;
The dolphins, not unconscious of the day,
Swam high, as eager of the coming ray;

The stars from broader beams began to creep,
And lift their shining eyelids from the deep;
The sail resumed its lately-shadow'd white,
And the wind flutter'd with a freshening flight;
The purpling ocean owns the coming sun-
But, ere he break, a deed is to be done.

II.

The gallant chief within his cabin slept,
Secure in those by whom the watch was kept:
His dreams were of old England's welcome shore,
Of toils rewarded, and of dangers o'er;
His name was added to the glorious roll
Of those who search the storm-surrounded pole.
The worst was over, and the rest seem'd sure,
And why should not his slumber be secure?
Alas! his deck was trod by unwilling feet,
And wilder hands would hold the vessel's sheet;
Young hearts, which languish'd for some sunny isle,
Where summer years and summer women smile;
Men without country, who, too long estranged,
Had found no native home, or found it changed,
And, half-uncivilised, preferr'd the cave
Of some soft savage to the uncertain wave;

The gushing fruits that nature gave untill'd;
The wood without a path but where they will'd;
The field o'er which promiscuous plenty pour'd
Her horn; the equal land without a lord;
The wish-which ages have not yet subdued
In man-to have no master save his mood;
The earth, whose mine was on its face, unsold,
The glowing sun and produce all its gold;
The freedom which can call each grot a home;
The general garden, where all steps may roam,
Where nature owns a nation as her child,

Exulting in the enjoyment of the wild;

Their shells, their fruits, the only wealth they know;
Their unexploring navy, the canoe;

Their sport, the dashing breakers and the chase;
Their strangest sight, an European face:-
Such was the country which these strangers yearn'd
To see again—a sight they dearly earn'd.

Awake, bold Bligh! the foe is at the gate!
Awake! awake!--Alas! it is too late!
Fiercely beside thy cot the mutineer
Stands, and proclaims the reign of rage and fear.
Thy limbs are bound, the bayonet at thy breast,
The hands, which trembled at thy voice, arrest;
Dragg'd o'er the deck, no more at thy command
The obedient helm shall veer, the sail expand;
That savage spirit, which would lull by wrath
Its desperate escape from duty's path,
Glares round thee, in the scarce-believing eyes
Of those who fear the chief they sacrifice;
For ne'er can man his conscience all assuage,
Unless he drain the wine of passion-rage.

IV.

In vain, not silenced by the eye of death,
Thou call'st the loyal with thy menaced breath:-
They come not; they are few, and, overawed,
Must acquiesce while sterner hearts applaud.
In vain thou dost demand the cause; a curse
Is all the answer, with the threat of worse.
Full in thine eyes is waved the glittering blade,
Close to thy throat the pointed bayonet laid,
The levell'd muskets circle round thy breast
In hands as steel'd to do the deadly rest.

Thou darest them to their worst, exclaiming, « Fire!»
But they who pitied not could yet admire;