And reach'd the passage with so swift a foot, Morgante was not now in time to shoot.

LXIV.

Perceiving that the pig was on him close,
He gave him such a punch upon the head,
As floor'd him so that he no more arose,
Smashing the very bone; and he fell dead
Next to the other. Having seen such blows,
The other pigs along the valley fled;
Morgante on his neck the bucket took,

Full from the spring, which neither swerved nor shook.

LXV.

The tun was on one shoulder, and there were
The hogs on t'other, and he brush'd apace
On to the abbey, though by no means near,
Nor spilt one drop of water in his race.
Orlando, seeing him so soon appear

With the dead boars, and with that brimful vase,
Marvell'd to see his strength so very great;
So did the abbot, and set wide the gate.

LXVI.

The monks, who saw the water fresh and good, Rejoiced, but much more to perceive the pork; All animals are glad at sight of food:

They lay their breviaries to sleep, and work With greedy pleasure, and in such a mood,

That the flesh needs no salt beneath their fork. Of rankness and of rot there is no fear, For all the fasts are now left in arrear.

LXVII.

As though they wish'd to burst at once, they ate;
And gorged so that, as if the bones had been
In water, sorely grieved the dog and cat,
Perceiving that they all were pick'd too clean.
The abbot, who to all did honor great,

A few days after this convivial scene,
Gave to Morgante a fine horse, well train'd,
Which he long time had for himself maintain'd.

LXVIII.

The horse Morgante to a meadow led,

To gallop, and to put him to the proof,

Thinking that he a back of iron had,

Or to skim eggs unbroke was light enough; But the horse, sinking with the pain, fell dead, And burst, while cold on earth lay head and hoof, Morgante said, "Get up, thou sulky cur!" And still continued pricking with the spur. LXIX.

But finally he thought fit to dismount,

And said, "I am as light as any feather, And he has burst;-to this what say you, count?" Orlando answer'd, “Like a ship's mast rather You seem to me, and with the truck for front: Let him go; Fortune wills that we together Should march, but you on foot Morgante still.” To which the giant answer'd, "So I will.

LXX.

"When there shall be occasion, you will see How I approve my courage in the fight." Orlando said, "I really think you'll be,

If it should prove God's will, a goodly knight;
Nor will you napping there discover me.
But never mind your horse, though out of sight
T were best to carry him into some wood,
If but the means or way I understood."
LXXI.

The giant said, "Then carry him I will,
Since that to carry me he was so slack—

He did; and stow'd him in some nook away,
And to the abbey then return'd with speed.
Orlando said, "Why longer do we stay?
Morgante, here is nought to do indeed."
The abbot by the hand he took one day,

And said, with great respect, he had agreed
To leave his reverence; but for this decision
He wish'd to have his pardon and permission.
LXXVI.

The honors they continued to receive

Perhaps exceeded what his merits claim'd: He said, "I mean, and quickly, to retrieve The lost days of time past, which may be blamed; Some days ago I should have ask'd your leave, Kind father, but I really was ashamed, And know not how to show my sentiment, So much I see you with our stay content.

LXXVII.

"But in my heart I bear through every clime
The abbot, abbey, and this solitude-

So much I love you in so short a time;
For me, from heaven reward you with all good
The God so true, the eternal Lord sublime!

Whose kingdom at the last hath open stood. Meantime we stand expectant of your blessing, And recommend us to your prayers with pressing." LXXVIII.

Now when the abbot Count Orlando heard,
His heart grew soft with inner tenderness,
Such fervor in his bosom bred each word;
And, "Cavalier," he said, "if I have less
Courteous and kind to your great worth appear'd,
Than fits me for such gentle blood to express,
I know I have done too little in this case;
But blame our ignorance, and this poor place.

LXXIX.

"We can indeed but honor you with masses, And sermons, thanksgivings, and paternosters, Hot suppers, dinners (fitting other places

In verity much rather than the cloisters)
But such a love for you my heart embraces,
For thousand virtues which your bosom fosters,
That wheresoe'er you go I too shall be,
And, on the other part, you rest with me.
LXXX.

"This may involve a seeming contradiction;
But you I know are sage, and feel, and taste,
And understand my speech, with full conviction.
For your just pious deeds may you be graced
With the Lord's great reward and benediction,
By whom you were directed to this waste:
To his high mercy is our freedom due,
For which we render thanks to him and you.

LXXXI.

"You saved at once our life and soul: such fear The giants caused us, that the way was lost By which we could pursue a fit career

In search of Jesus and the saintly host; And your departure breeds such sorrow here, That comfortless we all are to our cost; But months and years you would not stay in sloth, Nor are you form'd to wear our sober cloth;

LXXXII.

"But to bear arms, and wield the lance: indeed,
With these as much is done as with this cowl;
In proof of which the Scriptures you may read.
This giant up to heaven may bear his soul
By your compassion: now in peace proceed.
Your state and name I seek not to unroll;
But, if I'm ask'd, this answer shall be given,
That here an angel was sent down from heaven.

LXXXIII.

"If you want armor or aught else, go in,
Look o'er the wardrobe, and take what you choose.
And cover with it o'er this giant's skin."
Orlando answer'd, "If there should lie loose
Some armor, ere our journey we begin,
Which might be turn'd to my companion's use,
The gift would be acceptable to me."
The abbot said to him," Come in and see."
LXXXIV.

And in a certain closet, where the wall
Was cover'd with old armor like a crust,
The abbot said to them, "I give you all."
Morgante rummaged piecemeal from the dust
The whole, which, save one cuirass, was too small,
And that too had the mail inlaid with rust.
They wonder'd how it fitted him exactly,
Which ne'er has suited others so compactly.

LXXXV.

'T was an immeasurable giant's, who By the great Milo of Agrante fell Before the abbey many years ago.

The story on the wall was figured well; In the last moment of the abbey's foe,

Who long had waged a war implacable: Precisely as the war occurr'd they drew him, And there was Milo as he overthrew him.

LXXXVI.

Seeing this history, Count Orlando said

In his own heart, "Oh, God, who in the sky Know'st all things! how was Milo hither led? Who caused the giant in this place to die?" And certain letters, weeping, then he read,

So that he could not keep his visage dry,As I will tell in the ensuing story.

From evil keep you the high King of glory!

quite sure that he would be pleased with my success, since the Italians, with a pardonable nationality, are particularly jealous of all that is left them as a nation—their literature; and, in the present bitterness of the classic and romantic war, are but ill disposed to permit a foreigner even to approve or imitate them, without finding some fault with his ultramontane presumption. I can easily enter into

all this, knowing 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 poetical essays But I perceive that I am deviating into an address to the Italian reader, when 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 't was 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. Oh, 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 banishment, 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 vainglorious 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; Oh, Florence! Florence! unto me thou wast Like that Jerusalem which the Almighty He Wept over," but thou wouldst not;" 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 To him who for that country would expire, But did not merit to expire by her, And loves her, loves her even in her ire! The day may come when she will cease to err, The day may come she would be proud to have The dust she dooms to scatter, and transfer t 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 Forsooth is over, and repeal'd her doom;

No, she denied me what was mine-my roof, And shall not have what is not hers-my tomb. Too long her armed wrath hath kept aloof

The breast which would have bled for her, 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

The wound, too deep the wrong, and the distress
Of such endurance too prolong'd to make
My pardon greater, her injustice less,
Though late repented; yet-yet for her sake
I feel some fonder yearnings, and for thine,
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 shrine,
And save ten thousand foes by thy sole urn.
Though, like old Marius from Minturnæ's marsh
And Carthage ruins, my lone breast may burn
At times with evil feelings hot and harsh,

"Ut si quis predictorum ullo tempore in fortiam dicti communis pervenerit, talis perveniens igne comburatur, sic quod moriatur." Second sentence of Florence against Dante, and the fourteen accused with him. The Latin is worthy of the sentence.-On the 27th of January, 1302, Dante was mulcted eight thousand lire, and condemned to two years'

were to be confiscated. On the 11th of March, the same year, he was sentenced to a punishment due only to the most desperate of malefactors. The decree, that he and his associates in exile should be burned, if they fell into the hands of their enemies, was first discovered in 1772, by the Conte Ludovico Savioli. See Tiraboschi, where the sentence is given at length.

And sometimes the last pangs of a vile foe Writhe in a dream before me, and o'erarch My brow with hopes of triumph,-let them go! Such are the last infirmities of those

Who long have suffer'd more than mortal woe, And yet, being mortal still, have no repose

But on the pillow of Revenge-Revenge, Who sleeps to dream of blood, and waking glows With the oft baffled, slakeless thirst of change, When we shall mount again, and they that trod Be trampled on, while Death and Até range O'er humbled heads and sever'd necks-Great God!

Take these thoughts from me-to thy hands I yield

My many wrongs, and thine almighty rod Will fall on those who smote me,-be my shield! As thou hast been in peril, and in pain, In turbulent cities, and the tented fieldIn toil, and many troubles borne in vain

For Florence.*-I appeal from her to Thee! Thee whom I late saw in thy loftiest reign, Even in that glorious vision, which to see

And live was never granted until now, And yet thou hast permitted this to me. Alas! with what a weight upon my brow

The sense of earth and earthly things come back, Corrosive passions, feelings dull and low, The heart's quick throb upon the mental rack, Long day, and dreary night; the retrospect Of half a century bloody and black, And the frail few years I may yet expect Hoary and hopeless, but less hard to bear, For I have been too long and deeply wreck'd On the lone rock of desolate Despair,

To lift my eyes more to the passing sail Which shuns that reef so horrible and bare; Nor raise my voice-for who would heed my wail? I am not of this people, nor this age, And yet my harpings will unfold a tale Which shall preserve these times when not a page Of their perturbed annals could attract An eye to gaze upon their civil rage, Did not my verse embalm full many an act

а

Worthless as they who wrought it: 't is the doom
Of spirits of my order to be rack'd

In life, to wear their hearts out, and consume
Their days in endless strife, and die alone;
Then future thousands crowd around their tomb,
And pilgrims come from climes where they have
known

The name of him-who now is but a name,
And wasting homage o'er the sullen stone,
Spread his-by him unheard, unheeded-fame;
And mine at least hath cost me dear: to die
Is nothing; but to wither thus-to tame
My mind down from its own infinity—

To live in narrow ways with little men,
A common sight to every common eye,
A wanderer, while even wolves can find a den,
Ripp'd from all kindred, from all home, all things
That make communion sweet, and soften pain-
To feel me in the solitude of kings

Without the power that makes them bear a

crown

To envy every dove his nest and wings Which waft him where the Apennine looks down On Arno, till he perches, it may be, Within my all-inexorable town,

*"In one so highly endowed by nature, and so consummate by instruction, we may well sympathize with a resentment which exile and poverty rendered perpetually fresh. But the heart of Dante was naturally sensible, and even tender: his poetry is full of comparisons from rural life; and the sincerity of his early passion for Beatrice pierces through the veil of allegory that surrounds her. But the memory of his

Where yet my boys are, and that fatal she,†
Their mother, the cold partner who hath brought
Destruction for a dowry t-this to see

And feel, and know without repair, hath taught
A bitter lesson; but it leaves me free:
I have not vilely found, nor basely sought,
They made an Exile-not a slave of me.

CANTO THE SECOND.

THE Spirit of the fervent days of Old, When words were things that came to pass, and thought

Flash'd o'er the future, bidding men behold Their children's children's doom already brought Forth from the abyss of time which is to be, The chaos of events, where lie half-wrought Shapes that must undergo mortality; What the great Seers of Israel wore within, That spirit was on them, and is on me, And if, Cassandra-like, amidst the din

Of conflict none will hear, or hearing heed
This voice from out the Wilderness, the sin
Be theirs, and my own feelings be my meed,
The only guerdon I have ever known.
Hast thou not bled? and hast thou still to bleed,
Italia? Ah! to me such things, foreshown
With dim sepulchral light, bid me forget
In thine irreparable wrongs my own;
We can have but one country, and even yet
Thou 'rt mine-my bones shall be within thy
breast,

My soul within thy language, which once set
With our old Roman sway in the wide West;
But I will make another tongue arise
As lofty and more sweet, in which express'd
The hero's ardor, or the lover's sighs,
Shall find alike such sounds for every theme
That every word, as brilliant as thy skies,
Shall realize a poet's proudest dream,

And make thee Europe's nightingale of song;
So that all present speech to thine shall seem
The note of meaner birds, and every tongue
Confess its barbarism when compared with thine.
This shalt thou owe to him thou didst so wrong,
Thy Tuscan Bard, the banish'd Ghibeline.
Woe! woe! the veil of coming centuries
Is rent, a thousand years which yet supine
Lie like the ocean waves ere winds arise,
Heaving in dark and sullen undulation,
Float from eternity into these eyes;

The storms yet sleep, the clouds still keep their station,

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,

injuries pursued him into the immensity of eternal light; and in the company of saints and angels, his unforgiving spirit darkens at the name of Florence."-HALLAM.

This lady, whose name was Gemma, sprung from one of the most powerful Guelph families, named Donati. "The violence of Gemma's temper proved a source of the bitterest suffering to Dante."