1

THE PROPHECY OF DANTE.

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,
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,
Plough'd by the sunbeams solely, would suffice
For the world's granary; thou, whose sky
heaven gilds

With brighter stars, and robes with deeper
blue;

Thou, in whose pleasant places Summer builds
Her palace, in whose cradle Empire grew,

And form'd the Eternal City's ornaments
From spoils of kings whom freemen over-
threw ;

Birthplace of heroes, sanctuary of saints,

Where earthly first, then heavenly glory made
Her home; thou, all which fondest fancy
paints,

And finds her prior vision but portray'd

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 approach'd, and dearest were they
free,

Thou-thou must wither to each tyrant's will:
The Goth hath been, -the German, Frank,
and Hun

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,

And still more helpless nor less holy daughter,
Vow'd to their God, have shrieking fled, and

ceased

prey.

Their ministry: the nations take their
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.

CANTO

FROM out the mass of never-dying ill,
The Plague, the Prince, the Stranger, and

the Sword,

Vials of wrath but emptied to refill
And flow again, I cannot all record

Nine moons shall rise o'er scenes like this and set;
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 of 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.
Oh! when the strangers pass the Alps and Po,
Crush them, ye rocks! floods whelm them,
and for ever!

To topple on the lonely pilgrim's head?
Why sleep the idle avalanches so,
Why doth Eridanus but overflow
The peasant's harvest from his turbid bed?
Were not each barbarous horde a nobler prey?
Over Cambyses' host the desert spread
Her sandy ocean, and the sea-waves' sway
Roll'd over Pharaoh and his thousands, -why,
Mountains and waters, do ye not as they?
Sons of the conquerors who overthrew
And you, ye men! Romans who dare not die,

Those who o'erthrew proud Xerxes, where
yet lie

Are the Alps weaker than Thermopyla?
The dead whose tomb Oblivion never knew,
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?
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.
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!
So long the grave of thy own children's hopes,
Oh! my own beauteous land! so long laid low,
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,

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. THE THIRD.

That crowds on my prophetic eye: the earth
forth;
And ocean written o'er would not afford
go
Space for the annal, yet it shall

Yes, all, though not by human pen, is graven,
There where the farthest suns and stars have

birth,

Spread like a banner at the gate of heaven,
The bloody scroll of our millennial wrongs
Waves, and the echo of our groans is driven
Athwart the sound of archangelic songs,
And Italy, the martyr'd nation's gore,

1

THE PROPHECY OF DANTE.

To shield him from insanity or shame,
Such shall be his meet guerdon! who was sent
To be Christ's Laureate-they reward him
well!

Florence dooms me but death or banishment,
Ferrara him a pittance and a cell,

Harder to bear, and less deserved, for I
Had stung the factions which I strove to quell,
But this meek man, who with a lover's eye
Will look on earth and heaven, and who will
deign

To embalm with his celestial flattery,
As poor a thing as e'er was spawn'd to reign,
What will he do to merit such a doom?
Perhaps he'll love,-and is not love in vain
Torture enough without a living tomb?

Yet it will be so-he and his compeer,
The Bard of Chivalry, will both consume

In penury and pain too many a year,
And, dying in despondency, bequeath

Conduct? shall their bright plumage on the rough
Storm be still scatter'd? Yes, and it must be;
For, form'd of far too penetrable stuff,
These birds of Paradise but long to flee
Back to their native mansion, soon they find
Earth's mist with their pure pinions not agree,
And die or are degraded: for the mind

Succumbs to long infection, and despair,
And vulture passions flying close behind,
Await the moment to assail and tear;

And when at length the wing'd wanderers
stoop,

Then is the prey-bird's triumph, then they
share

The spoil, o'erpower'd at length by one fell

swoop.

Yet some have been untouch'd who learn'd to
bear,

Some whom no power could ever force to
droop,

To the kind world, which scarce will yield a Who could resist themselves even, hardest care!

tear,

A heritage enriching all who breathe

With the wealth of a genuine poet's soul, And to their country a redoubled wreath, Unmatch'd by time; not Hellas can unroll Through her olympiads two such names, though one

Of hers be mighty,-and is this the whole
Of such men's destiny beneath the sun?

Must all the finer thoughts, the thrilling sense,
The electric blood with which their arteries

run,

Their body's self turned soul with the intense
Feeling of that which is, and fancy of

And task most hopeless; but some such have

been,

And if my name amongst the number were,
That destiny austere, and yet serene,
Were prouder than more dazzling fame
unbless'd;

The Alp's snow summit nearer heaven is seen
Than the volcano's fierce eruptive crest,
Whose splendour from the black abyss is flung,
While the scorch'd mountain, from whose
burning breast

A temporary torturing flame is wrung,
Shines for a night of terror, then repels
Its fire back to the hell from whence it sprung,

That which should be, to such a recompense! The hell which in its entrails ever dwells.

CANTO THE FOURTH.

MANY are poets who have never penn'd
Their inspiration, and perchance the best :
They felt, and loved, and died, but would
not lend

Their thoughts to meaner beings; they com-
press'd

The god within them, and rejoin'd the stars Unlaurell'd upon earth, but far more bless'd Than those who are degraded by the jars

Of passion, and their frailties link'd to fame,
Conquerors of high renown, but full of scars.
Many are poets but without the name,

For what is poesy but to create
From overfeeling good or ill; and aim
At an external life beyond our fate,

And be the new Prometheus of new men,
Bestowing fire from heaven, and then, too late,
Finding the pleasure given repaid with pain,
And vultures to the heart of the bestower,
Who, having lavish'd his high gift in vain,
Lies chain'd to his lone rock by the sea-shore?

So be it: we can bear.-But thus all they
Whose intellect is an o'ermastering power
Which still recoils from its encumbering clay
Or lightens it to spirit, whatsoe'er

The form which their creations may essay,
Are bards; the kindled marble's bust may wear
More poesy upon its speaking brow

Than aught less than the Homeric page may
bear,

One noble stroke with a whole life may glow,
Or deify the canvas till it shine
With beauty so surpassing all below,

That they who kneel to idols so divine
Break no commandment, for high heaven is
there

Transfused, transfigurated: and the line
Of poesy, which peoples but the air
With thought and beings of our thought
reflected,

Can do no more: then let the artist share
The palm, he shares the peril, and dejected
Faints o'er the labour unapproved--Alas!
Despair and Genius are too oft connected.
Within the ages which before me pass

Art shall resume and equal even the sway
Which with Apelles and old Phidias
She held in Hellas' unforgotten day.

Ye shall be taught by ruin to revive
The Grecian forms at least from their decay,
And Roman souls at last again shall live

In Roman works wrought by Italian hands,
And temples, loftier than the old temples, give
New wonders to the world; and while still
stands

The austere Pantheon, into heaven shall soar
A dome, its image, while the base expands*
Into a fane surpassing all before,

Such as all flesh shall flock to kneel in: ne'er
Such sight hath been unfolded by a door
As this, to which all nations shall repair

And lay their sins at this huge gate of heaven.
And the bold Architect, unto whose care
The daring charge to raise it shall be given,

* The Cupola of St Peter's.

Whom all hearts shall acknowledge as their | And wear a deeper brand and gaudier chain?