Who, born perchance for better things, had set | He tore the topmost button from his vest,
His life upon a cast which linger'd yet:
But now the die was to be thrown, and all
The chances were in favour of his fall:
And such a fall! But still he faced the shock,
Obdurate as a portion of the rock

Down the tube dash'd it, levell'd, fired, and
smiled

Whereon he stood, and fix'd his levell'd gun,
Dark as a sullen cloud before the sun.

XII.

As his foe fell; then, like a serpent, coil'd
His wounded, weary form, to where the steep
Look'd desperate as himself along the deep,
Cast one glance back, and clench'd his hand,
and shook

His last rage 'gainst the earth which he forsook :
Then plunged: the rock below received like glass

The boat drew nigh, well arm'd, and firm the His body crush'd into one gory mass,

crew

To act whatever duty bade them do ;
Careless of danger, as the onward wind
Is of the leaves it strews, nor looks behind.
And yet perhaps they rather wish'd to go
Against a nation's than a native foe,
And felt that this poor victim of self-will,
Briton no more had once been Britain's still.
They hail'd him to surrender-no reply:
Their arms were poised, and glitter'd in the sky.
They hail'd again-no answer; yet once more
They offer'd quarter louder than before.
The echoes only, from the rocks rebound,
Took their last farewell of the dying sound.
Then flash'd the flint, and blazed the volleying
flame,

And the smoke rose between them and their aim,
While the rock rattled with the bullets' knell,
Which peal'd in vain, and flatten'd as they fell:
Then flew the only answer to be given
By those who had lost all hope in earth or heaven.
After the first fierce peal, as they pull'd nigher,
They heard the voice of Christian shout, "Now,
fire!"

And ere the word upon the echo died,
Two fell; the rest assail'd the rock's rough side.
And, furious at the madness of their foes,
Disdain'd all further efforts, save to close.
But steep the crag, and all without a path,
Each step opposed a bastion to their wrath,
While, placed 'midst clefts the least accessible,
Which Christian's eye was train'd to mark
full well,

The three maintain'd a strife which must not
yield,

In spots where eagles might have chosen to
build.

There every shot told; while the assailant fell,
Dash'd on the shingles like the limpet shell;
But still enough survived, and mounted still,
Scattering their numbers here and there, until
Surrounded and commanded, though not nigh
Enough for seizure, near enough to die,
The desperate trio held aloof their fate

With scarce a shred to tell of human form,
Or fragment for the sea-bird or the worm;
A fair-hair'd scalp, besmear'd with blood and
weeds,

Yet reek'd, the remnant of himself and deeds;
Some splinters of his weapons (to the last,
As long as hand could hold, he held them fast)
Yet glitter'd, but at distance-hurl'd away
To rust beneath the dew and dashing spray.
The rest was nothing-save a life mis-spent,
And soul-but who shall answer where it went?
'Tis ours to bear, not judge the dead; and they
Who doom to hell, themselves are on the way,
Unless these bullies of eternal pains

Are pardon'd their bad hearts for their worse
brains.

'Twas morn; and Neuha, who by dawn of day
Swam smoothly forth to catch the rising ray,
And watch if aught approach'd the amphibious
lair

Where lay her lover, saw a sail in air:
It flapp'd, it fill'd, and to the growing gale

But by a thread, like sharks who've gorged the Bent its broad arch; her breath began to fail

bait;

Yet to the very last they battled well,
And not a groan inform'd their foes who fell.
Christian died last-twice wounded; and once

more

Mercy was offered when they saw his gore;
Too late for life, but not too late to die,
With, though a hostile hand, to close his eye.
A limb was broken, and he droop'd along
The crag, as doth a falcon reft of young.
The sound revived him, or appear'd to wake
Some passion which a weakly gesture spake!
He beckon'd to the foremost, who drew nigh,
But, as they near'd, he rear'd his weapon high-
His last ball had been aim 1, but from his breast

With fluttering fear, her heart beat thick and

LADY! if for the cold and cloudy clime,

Where I was born, but where I would not die,
Of the great Poet-Sire of Italy

I dare to build the imitative rhyme,

Harsh Runic copy of the South's sublime,
THOU art the cause; and howsoever I
Fall short of his immortal harmony,

Thy gentle heart will pardon me the crime.
Thou, in the pride of Beauty and of Youth,

Spakest; and for thee to speak and be obey'd

Are one; but only in the sunny South

CAMPBELL.

Such sounds are utter'd, and such charms display'd,
So sweet a language from so fair a mouth-
Ah! to what effort would it not persuade.

RAVENNA, June 21, 1819.

PREFACE.

IN the course of a visit to the city of Ravenna in the summer of 1819, it was suggested to the author that, having composed something on the subject of Tasso's confinement, he should do the same on Dante's exile, the tomb of the poet forming one of the principal objects of interest in that city, both to the native and to the stranger.

"On this hint I spake," and the result has been the following four cantos, in terza rima, now offered to the reader. If they are understood and approved, it is my purpose to continue the poem, in various other cantos, to its natural conclusion in the present age. The reader is requested to suppose that Dante addresses him in the interval between the conclusion of the Divina Commedia and his death, and shortly before the latter event, foretelling the fortunes of Italy in general in the ensuing centuries. In adopting this plan I have had in my mind the Cassandra of Lycophron, and the Prophecy of Nereus by Horace, as well as the Prophecies of Holy Writ. The measure adopted is the terza rima of Dante, which I am not aware to have seen hitherto tried in our language, except it may be by Mr Hayley, of whose translation I never saw but one extract, quoted in the notes to Caliph Vathek; so that-if I do not err--this poem may be considered as a metrical experiment. The cantos are short, and about the same length of those of the poet, whose name I have borrowed, and most probably taken in vain.

If

Amongst the inconveniences of authors in the present day, it is difficult for any who have a name, good or bad, to escape translation. I have had the fortune to see the fourth canto of "Childe Harold" translated into Italian versi sciolti,-that is, a poem written in the Spenserean stanza into blank verse, without regard to the natural divisions of the stanza or of the sense. 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," 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 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

THE PROPHECY OF DANTE.

that is left them as a nation,-their literature; and in the present bitterness of the classic and
I can easily enter into all this, knowing
romantic war, are but ill disposed to permit a foreigner even to approve or imitate them, without
finding some fault with his ultramontane presumption.
what would be thought in England of an Italian imitator of Milton, or if a translation of Monti,
or Pindemonte, or Arici, should be held up to the rising generation as a model for their future
But I perceive that I am deviating into an address to the Italian reader, when
poetical essays.
my business is with the English one; and be they few or many, I must take my leave of both.

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;
Midst whom my own bright Beatrice bless'd
My spirit with her light; and to the base
Of the eternal Triad! first, last, best,

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.
O Beatrice! whose sweet limbs the sod
So long hath press'd, and the cold marble stone,
Thou sole pure seraph of my earliest love,
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 wander'd still in search of, nor her feet
Relieved her wing till found: without thy
light

My paradise had still been incomplete.
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, and
bright

Still in these dim old eyes, now overwrought
With the world's war, and years, and banish-

ment,

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,

Unto my native soil,-they have not yet
Quench'd 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 gather'd yet its praise,
I sought it not by any baser lure;

Man wrongs, and Time avenges, and my name
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 class'd
With conquerors, and virtue's other foes,
In bloody chronicles of ages past.

I would have had my Florence great and free;
O Florence! Florence! unto me thou wast
but thou wouldst not;'
Wept over,
Like that Jerusalem which the Almighty He

as the

bird
Gathers its young, I would have gather'd thee
Beneath a parent pinion, hadst thou heard

My voice; but as the adder, deaf and fierce,
Against the breast that cherish'd thee was

stirr'd

Thy venom, and my state thou didst amerce,
And doom this body forfeit to the fire.
Alas! how bitter is his country's curse
But did not merit to expire by her,
To him who, for that country would expire,

And loves her, loves her even in her ire!
The day may come she would be proud to
The day may come when she will cease to err,

have

The dust she dooms to scatter, and transfer 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
My indignant bones, because her angry gust
No, she denied me what was mine-my roof,
Forsooth is over, and repeal'd her doom;
And shall not have what is not hers-my tomb.
The breast which would have bled for her,
Too long her armed wrath hath kept aloof

the heart

That beat, the mind that was temptation proof,

The man who fought, toil'd, travell'd, and each

part

Of a true citizen fulfill'd, and saw

For his reward the Guelph's ascendant art
Pass his destruction even into a law.

These things are not made for forgetfulness,
Florence shall be forgotten first; too raw
Of such endurance too prolong'd to make
The wound, too deep the wrong, and the distress
My pardon greater, her injustice less,
I feel some fonder yearnings, and for thine,
Though late repented; yet-yet for her sake
My own Beatrice. I would hardly take
Vengeance upon the land which once was mine,
And still is hallow'd by thy dust's return,
Which would protect the murderess like a

CANTO THE SECOND.