The Spirit of the fervent days of Old,

When words were things that came to pass, and Thought

Flashed o'er the future, bidding men behold

Their children's children's doom already brought

Forth from the abyss of Time which is to be,

The Chaos of events, where lie half-wrought

Shapes that must undergo mortality;

What the great Seers of Israel wore within,

That Spirit was on them, and is on me,

And if, Cassandra-like, amidst the din10

Of conflict none will hear, or hearing heed

This voice from out the Wilderness, the sin

Be theirs, and my own feelings be my meed,

The only guerdon I have ever known.

Hast thou not bled? and hast thou still to bleed,

Italia? Ah! to me such things, foreshown

With dim sepulchral light, bid me forget

In thine irreparable wrongs my own;

We can have but one Country, and even yet

Thou'rt mine—my bones shall be within thy breast,20

My Soul within thy language, which once set

With our old Roman sway in the wide West;

But I will make another tongue arise

As lofty and more sweet, in which expressed

The hero's ardour, or the lover's sighs,

Shall find alike such sounds for every theme

That every word, as brilliant as thy skies,

Shall realise a Poet's proudest dream,

And make thee Europe's Nightingale of Song;[295]

So that all present speech to thine shall seem30

The note of meaner birds, and every tongue

Confess its barbarism when compared with thine.[bz]

This shalt thou owe to him thou didst so wrong,

Thy Tuscan bard, the banished Ghibelline.

Woe! woe! the veil of coming centuries

Is rent,—a thousand years which yet supine

Lie like the ocean waves ere winds arise,

Heaving in dark and sullen undulation,

Float from Eternity into these eyes;

The storms yet sleep, the clouds still keep their station,40

The unborn Earthquake yet is in the womb,

The bloody Chaos yet expects Creation,

But all things are disposing for thy doom;

The Elements await but for the Word,

"Let there be darkness!" and thou grow'st a tomb!

Yes! thou, so beautiful, shalt feel the sword,[296]

Thou, Italy! so fair that Paradise,

Revived in thee, blooms forth to man restored:

Ah! must the sons of Adam lose it twice?

Thou, Italy! whose ever golden fields,50

Ploughed by the sunbeams solely, would suffice

For the world's granary; thou, whose sky Heaven gilds[ca]

With brighter stars, and robes with deeper blue;

Thou, in whose pleasant places Summer builds

Her palace, in whose cradle Empire grew,

And formed the Eternal City's ornaments

From spoils of Kings whom freemen overthrew;

Birthplace of heroes, sanctuary of Saints,

Where earthly first, then heavenly glory made[cb]

Her home; thou, all which fondest Fancy paints,60

And finds her prior vision but portrayed

In feeble colours, when the eye—from the Alp

Of horrid snow, and rock, and shaggy shade

Of desert-loving pine, whose emerald scalp

Nods to the storm—dilates and dotes o'er thee,

And wistfully implores, as 'twere, for help

To see thy sunny fields, my Italy,

Nearer and nearer yet, and dearer still

The more approached, and dearest were they free,

Thou—Thou must wither to each tyrant's will:70

The Goth hath been,—the German, Frank, and Hun[297]

Are yet to come,—and on the imperial hill

Ruin, already proud of the deeds done

By the old barbarians, there awaits the new,

Throned on the Palatine, while lost and won

Rome at her feet lies bleeding; and the hue

Of human sacrifice and Roman slaughter

Troubles the clotted air, of late so blue,

And deepens into red the saffron water

Of Tiber, thick with dead; the helpless priest,80

And still more helpless nor less holy daughter,

Vowed to their God, have shrieking fled, and ceased

Their ministry: the nations take their prey,

Iberian, Almain, Lombard, and the beast

And bird, wolf, vulture, more humane than they

Are; these but gorge the flesh, and lap the gore

Of the departed, and then go their way;

But those, the human savages, explore

All paths of torture, and insatiate yet,

With Ugolino hunger prowl for more.90

Nine moons shall rise o'er scenes like this and set;[298]

The chiefless army of the dead, which late

Beneath the traitor Prince's banner met,

Hath left its leader's ashes at the gate;

Had but the royal Rebel lived, perchance

Thou hadst been spared, but his involved thy fate.

Oh! Rome, the Spoiler or the spoil of France,

From Brennus to the Bourbon, never, never

Shall foreign standard to thy walls advance,

But Tiber shall become a mournful river.100

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[299] the desert spread

Her sandy ocean, and the Sea-waves' sway

Rolled over Pharaoh and his thousands,—why,[cc]110

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 Thermopylæ?

Their passes more alluring to the view

Of an invader? is it they, or ye,

That to each host the mountain-gate unbar,

And leave the march in peace, the passage free?120

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:

Not 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.130

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.[300]

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,140

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 Sons, may do this with one deed—Unite.