O thou my country! I behold the walls,
The pillars and the arches of our sires,
Their towers and statues old:
But I do not behold
Their glory, or their weapons, or their bays,
Wherewith they were surcharged. Disarmed and fallen,
Thou dost thy brow and naked bosom show.
Oh! from thy deep wounds flow
What streams of blood! What pallor meets our gaze!
Where is thy beauty now? Of Heaven I ask,
And of the earth: "Oh say,
Who hath reduced her to this piteous plight?"
And what is worse, her arms strong fetters bind,
And without veil her hair floats to the wind,
And she, forlorn and sad, sits on the ground,
To anguish giving way.
Weep, O my Italy, for thou hast cause:
Born to surpass mankind
In every phase of Fortune, generous and unkind.
Even though thine eyes were torrents, nevermore
Could tears enough be shed
Thine injuries to weep and bitter shame,
O wretched slave, a glorious Queen of yore!
Who writes or thinks of thee,
And beareth in his mind thy vanished fame,
And sayeth not: "Why is her greatness dead?
What is the cause? Where is her ancient might?
Where is her valour in the glorious fight?
Who robbed thee of thy sword?
Who hath betrayed? What science, or what wiles.
Or what victorious lord
Despoiled thee of the garments of thy pride?
How didst thou fall, and when,
To this low state from regions glorified?
Doth no one fight for thee? No son of thine
Rise in thy cause? Bring weapons! I alone
Will fight, or perish in the fray divine.
Grant, Heaven, that even like fire
My blood may rise and all Italian souls inspire."
Where are thy sons? I hear a sound of arms,
Of chariots and of voices and of drums:
In countries far away
Thy sons meet war's affray.
Have patience, Italy, for comfort comes.
I see a storm of warriors and of steeds,
'Mid smoke, the sword, by which the foeman bleeds,
Like lightning flashing wide.
Is not some balm unto thy soul supplied?
Wilt thou not gaze upon the doubtful field?
For whom their life-blood yield
The sons of Italy? Ah, woeful sight!
For alien lord, their gore in streams doth flow!
Oh! wretched he who perisheth in fight,
Not for his native soil and loving wife,
Not for his children's life,
But slain by others' foe
For stranger race, and cannot say in death:
"I give thee now the breath,
My fatherland most dear, thou didst on me bestow."
Oh fortunate and blessed and endeared
The olden times, when throngs
Unnumbered sought to perish for their land!
And ye, to whom revering praise belongs,
Passes of Thessaly,
Where Fate and Persia lost power to withstand
The brave, the generous, the immortal few!
Methinks your mountains with mysterious voice,
Your forests, and your rocks, and azure wave
Unto the stranger tell
How on that plain the bodies of the brave
In dauntless legions fell,
Their lives devoting glorious Greece to save.
Ferocious then and wild,
Did Xerxes o'er the Hellespont take flight,
Laden with scorn of every future day;
And on Antela's memorable height,
Where the blest throng, in dying, ne'er found death,
Simonides did stand,
And gazed upon the sky, the ocean, and the land.
With tear-worn eyes, and with deep-sighing heart,
While strong emotion made his step infirm,
He seized the tuneful lyre:
"Oh ever blessed ye
Who gave your bosoms to the hostile spears
For love of her who led you to the sun!
Ye, whom Greece loves, and nations far admire!
To arms and dangers dire
What love did guide those in their early years?
What love the old whose days were nearly done?
Why unto ye so gay
Appeared the final hour, that bright with smites
You hurried on the hard and tearful way?
It seemed as though to dance or banquet proud,
And not to death, your numbers did proceed.
But Hades gazed with greed
Upon your valiant crowd;
Nor were your spouses or your children near
When in the fatal fray
Without a kiss you perished, and without a tear.
"But not without the Persian's punishment
And anguish ne'er to die.
Even as into a field where bulls are pent
A famished lion rushes, and his fangs
And claws make havoc wild,
And give his bellowing victims fatal pangs:
Thus, 'mid the Persian multitudes doth fly
The wrathful valour of the sons of Greece.
Behold the horsemen and their steeds o'erturned!
See how the whirl of flight
Entangles cars in many a fallen tent!
And of the first to run,
The tyrant, pale, and with dishevelled hair!
See how with crimson stains
Of barbarous blood the Grecian brave besmeared,
Giving the Persians infinite despair,
Fall, by their wounds exhausted, one by one,
Covering each other on the gory plains!
O blessed ye! for aye
To live whilst earth preserves a chronicle or lay!
"Sooner destroyed and cast into the deep
From highest heaven the stars shall hissing fall,
Rather than your renown
Forego its glorious crown.
An altar is your tomb; and full of love,
The mothers to their infants shall display
The traces of your blood. Behold, I sink,
Ye blessed, on the earth,
And kiss the rocks and the most cherished soil
That shall be praised and glorious for aye
Throughout creation's girth.
Would I were with you in your graves below!
Would that my gore with yours combined could flow!
But if our different doom forbids that I
For Greece should perish in heroic fray,
And close for her mine eye:
Yet may the fame, endeared
To future ages, of your poet shine;
And if the Gods benign
Consent, as long as yours be glorious and revered."
ON THE MONUMENT OF DANTE ABOUT TO
BE ERECTED IN FLORENCE.
Although our race at last
By Peace is sheltered 'neath her snowy wings,
Italian spirits ne'er
Shall rive the chains by ancient languor cast,
Unless our hapless country to the fame
Of her proud sires her meditation brings.
Italia! bear in mind
To honour the departed, for of such
Thy provinces are empty; none can claim
Like praise of those who now are drawing breath.
Turn and behold the numbers unconfined,
My land, of heroes whom no time can touch,
And full of shame bewail thine honour's death,
For without indignation grief is vain:
Turn to the past, and by thy shame revive,
And mindful be again
Of those who are no more, of those who still do strive.
Different in face, in language, and in mind,
On Tuscan soil the stranger takes his way,
Desirous much to learn
Where he the ashes of the bard can find
Who equalled Ilion's poet in his song.
And, oh inglorious day!
He hears not only that the body cold,
The naked bones afar
Are lying in a weary exile long,
But that not even within thy walls a stone,
O Florence! stands for him, whose glory old
Shines on thee like a star.
O ye, thrice bounteous, by whose deed alone
Shall this reproach be banished from our land!
A noble work is thine, whence love shall flow,
Renowned and courteous band,
From hearts that with deep love for Italy yet glow.
Yes, love for the ill-starred
Italian land, ye generous, be your guide!
She, to whom pity is dead
In every heart, for wretched and most hard
Are now the days that follow her past joy.
May you, by mercy, be with fire supplied
To crown the works you wrought!
May grief and wrath inspire you for the woe
Whence Italy is weeping her annoy!
But with what praise, or what immortal song
Shall we extol you, who not merely in thought,
But with the genius whence your bosoms glow,
Sublimest palms shall find in ages long,
Your land adorning with so high a deed?
Unto your souls what lay shall I address,
That in your hearts may feed
The never dying fire, and your high thoughts express?
Like torches, verily, the noble theme
Shall in your spirit throw the kindling blaze.
Who can the wave describe
Of your proud ire and patriotic dream?
say, who can paint the rapture of your brow?
The lightning of your gaze?
What mortal utterance of celestial thing
A faint reflection give?
Hence, ye profane! what tears of joyaunce now
The marble proud form Italy shall claim?
Shall it e'er fall? Shall time a shadow fling
On your renown? Ye live,
Wherewith the anguish of our grief we tame,
Ye live for aye, O cherished arts divine!
The only comfort of our hapless race.
Ye round our ruins twine
Your loveliness, preserving our old honour's trace.
Lo! I as well with zeal
Inspired to honour our grieved and sublime
Mother, bring what I can,
And with my song join in your chisel's peal,
Reclining where your skill gives marble life.
O lofty father of Etruscan rhyme!
If of terrestrial things,
And if of her whom thou hast placed so high,
In thine abode the tidings can be rife:
I know that not for thee thou feelest joy,
That frailer than the sands the ocean brings,
Likened to thy renown, which ne'er shall die,
Are bronze and marble; and if years destroy,
Or have destroyed, thine image in our soul,
Our anguish shall even more disastrous grow,
And thy race, by the whole
Wide world despised, shall weep in everlasting woe.
But not for thee, for this thy hapless land
Be joyous, if the example of its sire
Can ever give such strength
Unto the race, so sunk in slumber's hand,
That for a moment it can greatly dare.
Oh! by what evils dire
Thou seest her bowed down, who so ill-starred
Seemed to thine eyes when thou
To Paradise didst finally repair!
Now so reduced that, to her present plight,
She then was like a queen whom splendours guard.
Such anguish crowns her now
That when thou seest, thou mayst doubt thy sight.
The other evils and the other foes,
But not the newest and the most unkind,
I shall in silence close,
Whereby thy land well nigh its fatal hour did find.
Thrice blessed thou, whom Fate
Did not condemn such horrors to behold!
Who didst not see embraced,
By foemen fierce, Italian wives; nor hate
And foreign fury desolate each field,
And rob the cities of their goods and gold;
Nor of Italian skill
The works divine to wretched thraldom led
Beyond the Alpine snows; nor cannons wield
Their ponderous weight along the grief-thronged road;
Nor stern commands, nor haughty rule for ill;
Nor didst thou hear the insults and the dread
Abuse of Freedom's name, which seemed to goad
Our grief, while lashes did resound and chains.
Who did not grieve? What did we not endure?
What region ne'er complains
Of how those recreants sinned? What temple was secure?
Why in such evil times did we appear?
Why didst thou give us birth, O cruel fate?
Or why not early death?
Enslaved and subject is our land so dear
To strangers and blasphemers; all her pride
Is fallen and desolate;
No succour and no comfort can we see;
All balm to ease the pain
That gives her keenest anguish, is denied;
No solace can our bitter quest perceive.
Alas! our life blood we gave not to thee,
Land, dear to us in vain!
Nor have I perished; though for thee I grieve.
Here wrath and pity in all hearts abound:
Full many of our number fought and bled:
Alas! their doom they found,
Not for our Italy, but for her tyrants dread.
O Father, if thine ire
Lies dormant, thou art other than of yore;
Upon the barbarous plains
Of Scythia, the Italian brave expire,
Worthy of other death; the winds and skies,
The beasts and men wage on them cruel war.
In mighty hosts they fell,
Naked and wasted, and with gore besmeared.
For their dire bed the fatal snowstorm lies.
Then as they felt their last, expiring pain,
To her with whom their deep affections dwell,
They said: "Oh, not the clouds or winds that reared
Their deadly force, but steel, and for thy gain,
Should end our lives, dear country! From thee far,
When fairest years begin to meet our gaze,
We, who all unknown are,
Perish for that dire race which fetters thee and slays."
For their lament the Arctic desert bleak
Felt pity, and the moaning forests old.
Thus did they meet their end,
And wild beasts their neglected bodies seek
Upon that horrid ocean of deep snow,
Devouring their limbs cold;
And the renown of the sublime and brave
Shall lie with those for aye
Whom tardy vileness claimeth. Though your woe
Be infinite, ye cherished souls so dear!
Yet be at peace; and this console your grave,
That consolation's ray
Shall neither now nor in a future year
Be seen by you. Rest in your sorrow vast,
O ye true sons of her to whose supreme
Misfortunes unsurpassed,
Yours only is so great it can their equal seem!
Ah! not of you complains
Your native land, but of the one who made
Your weapons 'gainst her rise,
So that for evermore she mourns her pains,
And with your sorrows bids her own resound.
Oh! would for her, whom once Renown arrayed,
Fair Pity's light were shed
In such a heart as could to her be sent
To raise her from the dark abyss profound
Where she is lying! O! thou glorious Bard!
Say, of thine Italy if love be dead?
Say, if the flame that fired thee now be spent?
Say, shall no more that wreath its verdure guard
Wherewith we did so long our ills beguile?
Lie all our crowns now shattered in the dust?
Nor in a little while
Shall men arise like thee so generous and just?
Are we for ever withered? And our shame
No boundaries can hold?
I, whilst I live, shall everywhere exclaim:--
"Thou evil race, turn to thine ancestors;
Survey these ruins old,
And all the treasures wondrous arts bestow:
Think on what soil thou treadest; if thy heart
Feels not the light such high examples show,
Why stay? Rise and depart.
To be the scene of deeds so mean and fell,
This land of mighty heroes was not made:
If cravens here must dwell,
'Twere better it should be deserted and betrayed."