But the Sun, though not overcast, must set
And the night cometh; I am old in days,
And deeds, and contemplation, and have met
Destruction face to face in all his ways.
And the night cometh; I am old in days,
And deeds, and contemplation, and have met
Destruction face to face in all his ways.
Byron
If the present poem, being on a
national topic, should chance to undergo the same fate, I would request
the Italian reader to remember that when I have failed in the imitation
of his great "Padre Alighier,"[283] I have failed in imitating that
which all study and few understand, since to this very day it is not yet
settled what was the meaning of the allegory[284] in the first canto of
the _Inferno_, unless Count Marchetti's ingenious and probable
conjecture may be considered as having decided the question.
He may also pardon my failure the more, as I am not quite sure that he
would be pleased with my success, since the Italians, with a pardonable
nationality, are particularly jealous of all that is left them as a
nation--their literature; and in the present bitterness of the classic
and romantic war, are but ill disposed to permit a foreigner even to
approve or imitate them, without finding some fault with his
ultramontane presumption. I can easily enter into all this, knowing what
would be thought in England of an Italian imitator of Milton, or if a
translation of Monti, Pindemonte, or Arici,[285] should be held up to
the rising generation as a model for their future poetical essays. But I
perceive that I am deviating into an address to the Italian reader,
where my business is with the English one; and be they few or many, I
must take my leave of both.
THE PROPHECY OF DANTE.
CANTO THE FIRST.
Once more in Man's frail world! which I had left
So long that 'twas forgotten; and I feel
The weight of clay again,--too soon bereft
Of the Immortal Vision which could heal
My earthly sorrows, and to God's own skies
Lift me from that deep Gulf without repeal,
Where late my ears rung with the damned cries
Of Souls in hopeless bale; and from that place
Of lesser torment, whence men may arise
Pure from the fire to join the Angelic race; 10
Midst whom my own bright Beatric? [286] blessed
My spirit with her light; and to the base
Of the Eternal Triad! first, last, best,[287]
Mysterious, three, sole, infinite, great God!
Soul universal! led the mortal guest,
Unblasted by the Glory, though he trod
From star to star to reach the almighty throne. [bw]
Oh Beatrice! whose sweet limbs the sod
So long hath pressed, and the cold marble stone,
Thou sole pure Seraph of my earliest love, 20
Love so ineffable, and so alone,
That nought on earth could more my bosom move,
And meeting thee in Heaven was but to meet
That without which my Soul, like the arkless dove,
Had wandered still in search of, nor her feet
Relieved her wing till found; without thy light
My Paradise had still been incomplete. [288]
Since my tenth sun gave summer to my sight
Thou wert my Life, the Essence of my thought,
Loved ere I knew the name of Love,[289] and bright 30
Still in these dim old eyes, now overwrought
With the World's war, and years, and banishment,
And tears for thee, by other woes untaught;
For mine is not a nature to be bent
By tyrannous faction, and the brawling crowd,
And though the long, long conflict hath been spent
In vain,--and never more, save when the cloud
Which overhangs the Apennine my mind's eye
Pierces to fancy Florence, once so proud
Of me, can I return, though but to die, 40
Unto my native soil,--they have not yet
Quenched the old exile's spirit, stern and high.
But the Sun, though not overcast, must set
And the night cometh; I am old in days,
And deeds, and contemplation, and have met
Destruction face to face in all his ways.
The World hath left me, what it found me, pure,
And if I have not gathered yet its praise,
I sought it not by any baser lure;
Man wrongs, and Time avenges, and my name 50
May form a monument not all obscure,
Though such was not my Ambition's end or aim,
To add to the vain-glorious list of those
Who dabble in the pettiness of fame,
And make men's fickle breath the wind that blows
Their sail, and deem it glory to be classed
With conquerors, and Virtue's other foes,
In bloody chronicles of ages past.
I would have had my Florence great and free;[290]
Oh Florence! Florence! [291] unto me thou wast 60
Like that Jerusalem which the Almighty He
Wept over, "but thou wouldst not;" as the bird
Gathers its young, I would have gathered thee
Beneath a parent pinion, hadst thou heard
My voice; but as the adder, deaf and fierce,
Against the breast that cherished thee was stirred
Thy venom, and my state thou didst amerce,
And doom this body forfeit to the fire. [292]
Alas! how bitter is his country's curse
To him who _for_ that country would expire, 70
But did not merit to expire _by_ her,
And loves her, loves her even in her ire.
The day may come when she will cease to err,
The day may come she would be proud to have
The dust she dooms to scatter, and transfer[bx]
Of him, whom she denied a home, the grave.
But this shall not be granted; let my dust
Lie where it falls; nor shall the soil which gave
Me breath, but in her sudden fury thrust
Me forth to breathe elsewhere, so reassume 80
My indignant bones, because her angry gust
Forsooth is over, and repealed her doom;
No,--she denied me what was mine--my roof,
And shall not have what is not hers--my tomb.
Too long her armed wrath hath kept aloof
The breast which would have bled for her, the heart
That beat, the mind that was temptation proof,
The man who fought, toiled, travelled, and each part
Of a true citizen fulfilled, and saw
For his reward the Guelf's ascendant art 90
Pass his destruction even into a law.
These things are not made for forgetfulness,
Florence shall be forgotten first; too raw
The wound, too deep the wrong, and the distress
Of such endurance too prolonged to make
My pardon greater, her injustice less,
Though late repented; yet--yet for her sake
I feel some fonder yearnings, and for thine,
My own Beatric? , I would hardly take
Vengeance upon the land which once was mine, 100
And still is hallowed by thy dust's return,
Which would protect the murderess like a shrine,
And save ten thousand foes by thy sole urn.
Though, like old Marius from Minturnae's marsh
And Carthage ruins, my lone breast may burn
At times with evil feelings hot and harsh,[293]
And sometimes the last pangs of a vile foe
Writhe in a dream before me, and o'erarch
My brow with hopes of triumph,--let them go!
Such are the last infirmities of those 110
Who long have suffered more than mortal woe,
And yet being mortal still, have no repose
But on the pillow of Revenge--Revenge,
Who sleeps to dream of blood, and waking glows
With the oft-baffled, slakeless thirst of change,
When we shall mount again, and they that trod
Be trampled on, while Death and Ate range
O'er humbled heads and severed necks----Great God!
Take these thoughts from me--to thy hands I yield
My many wrongs, and thine Almighty rod 120
Will fall on those who smote me,--be my Shield!
As thou hast been in peril, and in pain,
In turbulent cities, and the tented field--
In toil, and many troubles borne in vain
For Florence,--I appeal from her to Thee!
national topic, should chance to undergo the same fate, I would request
the Italian reader to remember that when I have failed in the imitation
of his great "Padre Alighier,"[283] I have failed in imitating that
which all study and few understand, since to this very day it is not yet
settled what was the meaning of the allegory[284] in the first canto of
the _Inferno_, unless Count Marchetti's ingenious and probable
conjecture may be considered as having decided the question.
He may also pardon my failure the more, as I am not quite sure that he
would be pleased with my success, since the Italians, with a pardonable
nationality, are particularly jealous of all that is left them as a
nation--their literature; and in the present bitterness of the classic
and romantic war, are but ill disposed to permit a foreigner even to
approve or imitate them, without finding some fault with his
ultramontane presumption. I can easily enter into all this, knowing what
would be thought in England of an Italian imitator of Milton, or if a
translation of Monti, Pindemonte, or Arici,[285] should be held up to
the rising generation as a model for their future poetical essays. But I
perceive that I am deviating into an address to the Italian reader,
where my business is with the English one; and be they few or many, I
must take my leave of both.
THE PROPHECY OF DANTE.
CANTO THE FIRST.
Once more in Man's frail world! which I had left
So long that 'twas forgotten; and I feel
The weight of clay again,--too soon bereft
Of the Immortal Vision which could heal
My earthly sorrows, and to God's own skies
Lift me from that deep Gulf without repeal,
Where late my ears rung with the damned cries
Of Souls in hopeless bale; and from that place
Of lesser torment, whence men may arise
Pure from the fire to join the Angelic race; 10
Midst whom my own bright Beatric? [286] blessed
My spirit with her light; and to the base
Of the Eternal Triad! first, last, best,[287]
Mysterious, three, sole, infinite, great God!
Soul universal! led the mortal guest,
Unblasted by the Glory, though he trod
From star to star to reach the almighty throne. [bw]
Oh Beatrice! whose sweet limbs the sod
So long hath pressed, and the cold marble stone,
Thou sole pure Seraph of my earliest love, 20
Love so ineffable, and so alone,
That nought on earth could more my bosom move,
And meeting thee in Heaven was but to meet
That without which my Soul, like the arkless dove,
Had wandered still in search of, nor her feet
Relieved her wing till found; without thy light
My Paradise had still been incomplete. [288]
Since my tenth sun gave summer to my sight
Thou wert my Life, the Essence of my thought,
Loved ere I knew the name of Love,[289] and bright 30
Still in these dim old eyes, now overwrought
With the World's war, and years, and banishment,
And tears for thee, by other woes untaught;
For mine is not a nature to be bent
By tyrannous faction, and the brawling crowd,
And though the long, long conflict hath been spent
In vain,--and never more, save when the cloud
Which overhangs the Apennine my mind's eye
Pierces to fancy Florence, once so proud
Of me, can I return, though but to die, 40
Unto my native soil,--they have not yet
Quenched the old exile's spirit, stern and high.
But the Sun, though not overcast, must set
And the night cometh; I am old in days,
And deeds, and contemplation, and have met
Destruction face to face in all his ways.
The World hath left me, what it found me, pure,
And if I have not gathered yet its praise,
I sought it not by any baser lure;
Man wrongs, and Time avenges, and my name 50
May form a monument not all obscure,
Though such was not my Ambition's end or aim,
To add to the vain-glorious list of those
Who dabble in the pettiness of fame,
And make men's fickle breath the wind that blows
Their sail, and deem it glory to be classed
With conquerors, and Virtue's other foes,
In bloody chronicles of ages past.
I would have had my Florence great and free;[290]
Oh Florence! Florence! [291] unto me thou wast 60
Like that Jerusalem which the Almighty He
Wept over, "but thou wouldst not;" as the bird
Gathers its young, I would have gathered thee
Beneath a parent pinion, hadst thou heard
My voice; but as the adder, deaf and fierce,
Against the breast that cherished thee was stirred
Thy venom, and my state thou didst amerce,
And doom this body forfeit to the fire. [292]
Alas! how bitter is his country's curse
To him who _for_ that country would expire, 70
But did not merit to expire _by_ her,
And loves her, loves her even in her ire.
The day may come when she will cease to err,
The day may come she would be proud to have
The dust she dooms to scatter, and transfer[bx]
Of him, whom she denied a home, the grave.
But this shall not be granted; let my dust
Lie where it falls; nor shall the soil which gave
Me breath, but in her sudden fury thrust
Me forth to breathe elsewhere, so reassume 80
My indignant bones, because her angry gust
Forsooth is over, and repealed her doom;
No,--she denied me what was mine--my roof,
And shall not have what is not hers--my tomb.
Too long her armed wrath hath kept aloof
The breast which would have bled for her, the heart
That beat, the mind that was temptation proof,
The man who fought, toiled, travelled, and each part
Of a true citizen fulfilled, and saw
For his reward the Guelf's ascendant art 90
Pass his destruction even into a law.
These things are not made for forgetfulness,
Florence shall be forgotten first; too raw
The wound, too deep the wrong, and the distress
Of such endurance too prolonged to make
My pardon greater, her injustice less,
Though late repented; yet--yet for her sake
I feel some fonder yearnings, and for thine,
My own Beatric? , I would hardly take
Vengeance upon the land which once was mine, 100
And still is hallowed by thy dust's return,
Which would protect the murderess like a shrine,
And save ten thousand foes by thy sole urn.
Though, like old Marius from Minturnae's marsh
And Carthage ruins, my lone breast may burn
At times with evil feelings hot and harsh,[293]
And sometimes the last pangs of a vile foe
Writhe in a dream before me, and o'erarch
My brow with hopes of triumph,--let them go!
Such are the last infirmities of those 110
Who long have suffered more than mortal woe,
And yet being mortal still, have no repose
But on the pillow of Revenge--Revenge,
Who sleeps to dream of blood, and waking glows
With the oft-baffled, slakeless thirst of change,
When we shall mount again, and they that trod
Be trampled on, while Death and Ate range
O'er humbled heads and severed necks----Great God!
Take these thoughts from me--to thy hands I yield
My many wrongs, and thine Almighty rod 120
Will fall on those who smote me,--be my Shield!
As thou hast been in peril, and in pain,
In turbulent cities, and the tented field--
In toil, and many troubles borne in vain
For Florence,--I appeal from her to Thee!
