Over Cambyses' host1 the desert spread
Her sandy ocean, and the Sea-waves' sway
Rolled over Pharaoh and his thousands,-why,"
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 Thermopyla?
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.2

i. · and his phalanx-why.-[MS. Alternative reading.] 1. [Cambyses, the second King of Persia, who reigned B.C. 529-522, sent an army against the Ammonians, which perished in the sands.] 2. [The Prophecy of Dante was begun and finished before Byron took up the cause of Italian independence, or definitely threw in his lot with the Carbonari, but his intimacy with the Gambas, which dates from his migration to Ravenna in 1819, must from the first have brought him within the area of political upheaval and disturbance. A year after (April 16, 1820) he writes to Murray, "I have, besides, another reason for desiring you to be speedy, which is, that there is THAT brewing in Italy which will speedily cut off all security of communication. . . . I shall, if permitted by the natives, remain to see what will come of it, . . . for I shall think it by far the most interesting spectacle and moment in existence, to see the Italians send the Barbarians of all nations back to their own dens. I have lived long enough

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.

among them to feel more for them as a nation than for any other people in existence: but they want Union [see line 145], and they want principle; and I doubt their success."-Letters, 1901, v. 8, note 1.]

CANTO THE THIRD,

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

That crowds on my prophetic eye: the Earth
And Ocean written o'er would not afford

Space for the annal, yet it shall go forth;

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 martyred nation's gore, Will not in vain arise to where belongs Omnipotence and Mercy evermore :

it.

Like to a harpstring stricken by the wind,
The sound of her lament shall, rising o'er
The Seraph voices, touch the Almighty Mind.
Meantime I, humblest of thy sons, and of
Earth's dust by immortality refined

To Sense and Suffering, though the vain may scoff,
And tyrants threat, and meeker victims bow
Before the storm because its breath is rough,
To thee, my Country! whom before, as now,
I loved and love, devote the mournful lyre

the martyred country's gore

Will not in vain arise to whom belongs.-[MS. erased.]

ΙΟ

20

And melancholy gift high Powers allow To read the future: and if now my fire

Is not as once it shone o'er thee, forgive!
I but foretell thy fortunes-then expire;
Think not that I would look on them and live.
A Spirit forces me to see and speak,
And for my guerdon grants not to survive;
My Heart shall be poured over thee and break:
Yet for a moment, ere I must resume

Thy sable web of Sorrow, let me take
Over the gleams that flash athwart thy gloom

30

A softer glimpse; some stars shine through thy night,
And many meteors, and above thy tomb

Leans sculptured Beauty, which Death cannot blight: 40
And from thine ashes boundless Spirits rise
To give thee honour, and the earth delight;
Thy soil shall still be pregnant with the wise,

The gay, the learned, the generous, and the brave,
Native to thee as Summer to thy skies,
Conquerors on foreign shores, and the far wave,'
Discoverers of new worlds, which take their name;

2

1. Alexander of Parma, Spinola, Pescara, Eugene of Savoy, Montecuccoli.

[Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma (1546-1592), recovered the Southern Netherlands for Spain, 1578-79, made Henry IV. raise the siege of Paris, 1590, etc.

Ambrogio, Marchese di Spinola (1569-1630), a Maltese by birth, entered the Spanish service 1602, took Ostend 1604, invested Bergenop-Zoom, etc.

Ferdinando Francesco dagli Avalos, Marquis of Pescara (1496-1525), took Milan November 19, 1521, fought at Lodi, etc., was wounded at the battle of Padua, February 24, 1525. He was the husband of Vittoria Colonna, and when he was in captivity at Ravenna wrote some verses in her honour.

François Eugene (1663-1736), Prince of Savoy-Carignan, defeated the French at Turin, 1706, and (with Marlborough) at Malplaquet, 1709; the Turks at Peterwardein, 1716, etc.

Raimondo Montecuccoli, a Modenese (1608-1680), defeated the Turks at St. Gothard in 1664, and in 1675-6 commanded on the Rhine, and out-generalled Turenne and the Prince de Condé.]

2. Columbus, Americus Vespusius, Sebastian Cabot.

[Christopher Columbus (circ. 1430-1506), a Genoese, discovered mainland of America, 1498; Amerigo Vespucci (1451-1512), a Florentine, explored coasts of America, 1497-1504; Sebastian Cabot (1477-1557), son of Giovanni Cabotto or Gavotto, a Venetian, discovered coasts of Labrador, etc., June, 1497.]

For thee alone they have no arm to save,
And all thy recompense is in their fame,

A noble one to them, but not to thee-
Shall they be glorious, and thou still the same?
Oh! more than these illustrious far shall be

50

The Being and even yet he may be bornThe mortal Saviour who shall set thee free, And see thy diadem, so changed and worn By fresh barbarians, on thy brow replaced; And the sweet Sun replenishing thy morn, Thy moral morn, too long with clouds defaced, And noxious vapours from Avernus risen, Such as all they must breathe who are debased By Servitude, and have the mind in prison.' Yet through this centuried eclipse of woe Some voices shall be heard, and Earth shall listen; Poets shall follow in the path I show,

бо

And make it broader: the same brilliant sky
Which cheers the birds to song shall bid them glow,".
And raise their notes as natural and high:

Tuneful shall be their numbers; they shall sing
Many of Love, and some of Liberty,

But few shall soar upon that Eagle's wing,
And look in the Sun's face, with Eagle's gaze,
All free and fearless as the feathered King,
But fly more near the earth; how many a phrase
Sublime shall lavished be on some small prince
In all the prodigality of Praise !

iii.

And language, eloquently false, evince
The harlotry of Genius, which, like Beauty,"

i. Yet through this many-yeared eclipse of Woe.

iv.

70

[MS. Alternative reading.] Yet through this murky interreign of Woe.-MS. erased.] ii. Which choirs the birds to song -[MS. Alternative reading.]

iii. And Pearls flung down to regal Swine evince.

[MS. Alternative reading.] iv. The whoredom of high Genius --[MS. Alternative reading.] I. [Compare"Ah! servile Italy, grief's hostelry!

A ship without a pilot in great tempest!"
Purgatorio, vi. 76, 77.]