Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Part 18

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.

x.x.x.

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.

x.x.xI.

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 pa.s.sing 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.

x.x.xII.

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.

x.x.xIII.

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 G.o.d must strive:

x.x.xIV.

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 pa.s.s away; Making the sun like blood, the earth a tomb, The tomb a h.e.l.l, and h.e.l.l itself a murkier gloom.

x.x.xV.

Ferrara! in thy wide and gra.s.s-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.

x.x.xVI.

And Ta.s.so 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 h.e.l.l Where he had plunged it. Glory without end Scattered the clouds away--and on that name attend

x.x.xVII.

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:

x.x.xVIII.

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!

x.x.xIX.

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 unsurpa.s.sed 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 h.e.l.l 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 Superst.i.tion 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 G.o.d! 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 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 armed 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 AEgina lay, Piraeus 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 ma.s.s 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 pa.s.s The skeleton of her t.i.tanic 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 Her corn, and wine, and oil, and Plenty leaps To laughing life, with her redundant horn.

Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps, Was modern Luxury of Commerce born, And buried Learning rose, redeemed to a new morn.

XLIX.

There, too, the G.o.ddess loves in stone, and fills The air around with beauty; we inhale 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; 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-- Chained 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: Blood, pulse, and breast, confirm the Dardan Shepherd's prize.

LI.