CANTO THE FOURTH.

MANY are Poets who have never penned
Their inspiration, and perchance the best:
They felt, and loved, and died, but would not lend
Their thoughts to meaner beings; they compressed
The God within them, and rejoined the stars
Unlaurelled upon earth, but far more blessed
Than those who are degraded by the jars

Of Passion, and their frailties linked 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 1
At an external life beyond our fate,

And be the new Prometheus of new men,2
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 lavished his high gift in vain,

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1. [So too Wordsworth, in his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads (1800); Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings."]

2. [Compare

Prometheus, iii. lines 35, seq.; vide ante, p. 50.

Compare, too, the Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, stanza xvi. var. ii.—

"He suffered for kind acts to men."

Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 312.]

Lies chained 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 canvass 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

2

A Dome, its image, while the base expands

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40

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1. ["Transfigurate," whence "transfiguration," is derived from the Latin transfiguro, found in Suetonius and Quintilian. Byron may have thought to anglicize the Italian trasfigurarsi.]

2. The Cupola of St. Peter's.

[Michel Angelo, then in his seventy-second year, received the appointment of architect of St. Peter's from Pope Paul III. He began the dome on a different plan from that of the first architect, Bramante, "declaring that he would raise the Pantheon in the air." The drum of the dome was constructed in his life-time, but for more than twentyfour years after his death (1563), the cupola remained untouched, and

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 Architect1 unto whose care
The daring charge to raise it shall be given,
Whom all Arts shall acknowledge as their Lord,
Whether into the marble chaos driven

His chisel bid the Hebrew,2 at whose word

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it was not till 1590, in the pontificate of Sixtus V., that the dome itself was completed. The ball and cross were placed on the summit in November, 1593.-Handbook of Rome, p. 239.

Compare Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza cliii. line 1, Poetical Works, 1892, ii. 440, 441, note 2.]

1. [Yet, however unequal I feel myself to that attempt, were I now to begin the world again, I would tread in the steps of that great master [Michel Angelo]. To kiss the hem of his garment, to catch the slightest of his perfections, would be glory and distinction enough for an ambitious man."-Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1884, p. 289.]

2. The statue of Moses on the monument of Julius II.

[Michel Angelo's Moses is near the end of the right aisle of the Church of S. Pietro-in-Vincoli.]

"SONETTO

"Di Giovanni Battista Zappi.

"Chi è costui, che in si gran pietra scolto,
Siede gigante, e le più illustri, e conte
Opre dell' arte avanza, e ha vive, e pronte
Le labbra sì, che le parole ascolto?
Quest' è Mosè; ben me 'l diceva il folto
Onor del mento, e 'l doppio raggio in fronte;
Quest' è Mosè, quando scendea dal monte,
E gran parte del Nume avea nel volto.
Tal' era allor, che le sonanti, e vaste
Acque ei sospese, a se d' intorno; e tale

Quando il Mar chiuse, e ne fè tomba altrui.

E voi, sue turbe, un rio vitello alzaste?

Alzata aveste immago a questa eguale!

Ch' era men fallo l' adorar costui."

[Scelta di Sonetti . . . del Gobbi, 1709, iii. 216.]

["And who is he that, shaped in sculptured stone
Sits giant-like? stern monument of art
Unparalleled, while language seems to start
From his prompt lips, and we his precepts own?
-"Tis Moses; by his beard's thick honours known,
And the twin beams that from his temples dart;
'Tis Moses; seated on the mount apart,
Whilst yet the Godhead o'er his features shone.

Israel left Egypt, stop the waves in stone,1
Or hues of Hell be by his pencil poured
Over the damned before the Judgement-throne,1

Such as I saw them, such as all shall see,

Or fanes be built of grandeur yet unknown

The Stream of his great thoughts shall spring from me 2
The Ghibelline, who traversed the three realms
Which form the Empire of Eternity.

Amidst the clash of swords, and clang of helms,
The age which I anticipate, no less
Shall be the Age of Beauty, and while whelms
Calamity the nations with distress,

The Genius of my Country shall arise,
A Cedar towering o'er the Wilderness,
Lovely in all its branches to all eyes,
Fragrant as fair, and recognised afar,

Israel took God, pronounce the law in stone.
Israel left Egypt, cleave the sea in stone.—
[MS. Alternative readings.]

Such once he looked, when Ocean's sounding wave
Suspended hung, and such amidst the storm,
When o'er his foes the refluent waters roared.

An idol calf his followers did engrave:

But had they raised this awe-commanding form,
Then had they with less guilt their work adored."

Rogers.]

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1. The Last Judgment, in the Sistine Chapel. ["It is obvious, throughout his [Michel Angelo's] works, that the poetical mind of the latter [Dante] influenced his feelings. The Demons in the Last Judgment. may find a prototype in La Divina Commedia. The figures rising from the grave mark his study of L'Inferno, e Il Purgatorio; and the subject of the Brazen Serpent, in the Sistine Chapel, must remind every reader of Canto XXV. dell' Inferno."— Life of Michael Angelo, by R. Duppa, 1856, p. 120.]

2. I have read somewhere (if I do not err, for I cannot recollect where,) that Dante was so great a favourite of Michael Angelo's, that he had designed the whole of the Divina Commedia: but that the volume containing these studies was lost by sea.

[Michel Angelo's copy of Dante, says Duppa (ibid., and note 1), "was a large folio, with Landino's commentary; and upon the broad margin of the leaves he designed with a pen and ink, all the interesting subjects. This book was possessed by Antonio Montanti, a sculptor and architect in Florence, who, being appointed architect to St. Peter's, removed to Rome, and shipped his ... effects at Leghorn for Cività Vecchia, among which was this edition of Dante. In the voyage the vessel foundered at sea, and it was unfortunately lost in the wreck."]

Wafting its native incense through the skies.
Sovereigns shall pause amidst their sport of war,
Weaned for an hour from blood, to turn and gaze 80
On canvass or on stone; and they who mar

All beauty upon earth, compelled to praise,
Shall feel the power of that which they destroy;
And Art's mistaken gratitude shall raise
To tyrants, who but take her for a toy,

Emblems and monuments, and prostitute
Her charms to Pontiffs proud,1.who but employ
The man of Genius as the meanest brute

To bear a burthen, and to serve a need,
To sell his labours, and his soul to boot.
Who toils for nations may be poor indeed,

But free; who sweats for Monarchs is no more
Than the gilt Chamberlain, who, clothed and feed,
Stands sleek and slavish, bowing at his door.

Oh, Power that rulest and inspirest! how
Is it that they on earth, whose earthly power 2
Is likest thine in heaven in outward show,
Least like to thee in attributes divine,
Tread on the universal necks that bow,
And then assure us that their rights are thine?
And how is it that they, the Sons of Fame,
Whose inspiration seems to them to shine
From high, they whom the nations oftest name,
Must pass their days in penury or pain,

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1. See the treatment of Michel Angelo by Julius II., and his neglect by Leo X. [Julius II. encouraged his attendance at the Vatican, but one morning he was stopped by the chamberlain in waiting, who said, "I have an order not to let you enter." Michel Angelo, indignant at the insult, left Rome that very evening. Though Julius despatched five couriers to bring him back, it was some months before he returned. Even a letter (July 8, 1506), in which the Pope promised his "dearly beloved Michel Angelo" that he should not be touched nor offended, but be "reinstated in the apostolic grace," met with no response. It was this quarrel with Julius II. which prevented the completion of the sepulchral monument. The "Moses" and the figures supposed to represent the Active and the Contemplative Life, and three Caryatides (since removed) represent the whole of the original design, a parallelogram surmounted with forty statues, and covered with reliefs and other ornaments."-See Duppa's Life,etc., 1856, pp. 33, 34, and Handbook of Rome, p. 133.]

2. [Compare Merchant of Venice, act iv. sc. 1, lines 191, 192.]