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 Beatricē[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 bright30

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 name50

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 wast60

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 reassume80

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 arméd 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 art90

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 Beatricē, 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 Minturnæ'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 those110

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 Até 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 rod120

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!

Thee, whom I late saw in thy loftiest reign,

Even in that glorious Vision, which to see

And live was never granted until now,

And yet thou hast permitted this to me.

Alas! with what a weight upon my brow130

The sense of earth and earthly things come back,

Corrosive passions, feelings dull and low,

The heart's quick throb upon the mental rack,

Long day, and dreary night; the retrospect

Of half a century bloody and black,

And the frail few years I may yet expect

Hoary and hopeless, but less hard to bear,

For I have been too long and deeply wrecked

On the lone rock of desolate Despair,

To lift my eyes more to the passing sail140

Which shuns that reef so horrible and bare;

Nor raise my voice—for who would heed my wail?

I am not of this people, nor this age,

And yet my harpings will unfold a tale

Which shall preserve these times when not a page

Of their perturbéd annals could attract

An eye to gaze upon their civil rage,[by]

Did not my verse embalm full many an act

Worthless as they who wrought it: 'tis the doom

Of spirits of my order to be racked150

In life, to wear their hearts out, and consume

Their days in endless strife, and die alone;

Then future thousands crowd around their tomb,

And pilgrims come from climes where they have known

The name of him—who now is but a name,

And wasting homage o'er the sullen stone,

Spread his—by him unheard, unheeded—fame;

And mine at least hath cost me dear: to die

Is nothing; but to wither thus—to tame

My mind down from its own infinity—160

To live in narrow ways with little men,

A common sight to every common eye,

A wanderer, while even wolves can find a den,

Ripped from all kindred, from all home, all things

That make communion sweet, and soften pain—

To feel me in the solitude of kings

Without the power that makes them bear a crown—

To envy every dove his nest and wings

Which waft him where the Apennine looks down

On Arno, till he perches, it may be,170

Within my all inexorable town,

Where yet my boys are, and that fatal She,[294]

Their mother, the cold partner who hath brought

Destruction for a dowry—this to see

And feel, and know without repair, hath taught

A bitter lesson; but it leaves me free:

I have not vilely found, nor basely sought,

They made an Exile—not a Slave of me.