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 martyr'd nation's gore, Will not in vain arise to where belongs Omnipotence and mercy evermore :

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 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 pour'd 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 A softer glimpse; some stars shine through thy night,

And many meteors, and above thy tomb Leans sculptured Beauty, which Death cannot blight:

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 learn'd, the generous, and the brave,

Native to thee as summer to thy skies, Conquerors on foreign shores, and the far wave,1 Discoverers of new worlds, which take their name; 2

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
The being and even yet he may be born-
The 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,

The 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,

And make it broader: the same brilliant sky Which cheers the birds to song shail 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 feather'd king,
But fly more near the earth; how many a phrase
Sublime shall lavish'd be on some small prince
In all the prodigality of praise!

And language, eloquently false, evince
The harlotry of genius, which, like beauty,
Too oft forgets its own self-reverence,
And looks on prostitution as a duty.

He who once enters in a tyrant's hall3
As guest is slave, his thoughts become a booty,
And the first day which sees the chain enthral
A captive, sees his half of manhood gone *—
The soul's emasculation saddens all

His spirit; thus the Bard too near the throne
Quails from his inspiration, bound to please,—
How servile is the task to please alone!
To smooth the verse to suit his sovereign's ease
And royal leisure, nor too much prolong
Aught save his eulogy, and find, and seize,

Or force, or forge fit argument of song!

Thus trammell'd, thus condemn'd to Flattery's trebles,

He toils through all, still trembling to be wrong:

For fear some noble thoughts, like heavenly rebels,

Should rise up in high treason to his brain, He sings, as the Athenian spoke, with pebbles In's mouth, lest truth should stammer through His strain.

But out of the long file of sonneteers

5

There shall be some who will not sing in vain, And he, their prince, shall rank among my peers," And love shall be his torment; but his grief Shall make an immortality of tears, And Italy shall hail him as the Chief Of Poet-lovers, and his higher song Of Freedom wreathe him with as green a leaf. But in a farther age shall rise along

The banks of Po two greater still than he; The world which smiled on him shall do them wrong

Till they are ashes and repose with me.
The first will make an epoch with his lyre,
And fill the earth with feats of chivalry:
His fancy like a rainbow, and his fire,
Like that of Heaven, immortal, and his
thought

Borne onward with a wing that cannot tire
Pleasure shall, like a butterfly new caught,
Flutter her lovely pinions o'er his theme,
And Art itself seem into Nature wrought
By the transparency of his bright dream.
The second, of a tenderer, sadder mood,

;

Shall pour his soul out o'er Jerusalem; He, too, shall sing of arms, and Christian blood Shed where Christ bled for man; and his high harp

Shall, by the willow over Jordan's flood, Revive a song of Sion, and the sharp

Conflict, and final triumph of the brave And pious, and the strife of hell to warp Their hearts from their great purpose, until wave The red-cross banners where the first red Cross Was crimson'd from his veins who died to save, Shall be his sacred argument; the loss

Of years, of favour, freedom, even of fame Contested for a time, while the smooth gloss Of courts would slide o'er his forgotten name And call captivity a kindness, meant 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