XL.

Great as thou art, yet parallel'd by those,
Thy countrymen, before thee born to shine,
The Bards of Hell and Chivalry: first rose
The Tuscan father's comedy divine;

Then, not unequal to the Florentine,

The southern Scott, the minstrel who call'd 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 (19)
The iron crown of laurel's mimic'd leaves;
Nor was the ominous element unjust,

For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves (20)
Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves,
And the false semblance but disgraced his brow;
Yet still, if fondly Superstition grieves,
Know, that the lightning sanctifies below (21)

Whate'er it strikes ;-yon head is doubly sacred now.

XLII.

Italia! oh Italia! thou who hast (22)

The fatal gift of beauty, which became
A funeral dower of present woes and past,

On thy sweet brow is sorrow plough'd by shame,
And annals graved in characters of flame.

Oh God! that thou wert in thy nakedness

Less lovely or more powerful, and could'st claim Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press To shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy distress;

XLIII.

Then might'st 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 pour'd Down the deep Alps; nor would the hostile horde Of many-nation'd spoilers from the Po

Quaff blood and water; nor the stranger's sword Be thy sad weapon of defence, and so,

Victor or vanquish'd, thou the slave of friend or foe.

XLIV.

Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him, (23)
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
Ægina lay, Piræus 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 uprear'd
Barbaric dwellings on their shatter'd site,
Which only make more mourn'd and more endear'd
The few last rays of their far-scatter'd light,
And the crush'd relics of their vanish'd 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 mass

Of perish'd states he mourn'd 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 pass
The skeleton of her Titanic form, (24)

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, redeem'd to a new morn.

XLIX.

There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills (25)

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: