My brow with hopes of triumph,-let them go! Who long have suffer'd more than mortal woe, 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. The heart's quick throb upon the mental rack, And the frail few years I may yet expect On the lone rock of desolate despair Which shuns that reef so horrible and bare; Nor raise my voice for who would heed my wail? And yet my harpings will unfold a tale Which shall preserve these times, when not a page An eye to gaze upon their civil rage, In life, to wear their hearts out, and consume To live in narrow ways with little men, A wanderer, while even wolves can find a den, 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 Within my all-inexorable town, Where yet my boys are, and that fatal she,5 Their mother, the cold partner who hath brought Destruction for a dowry-this to see And feel, and know without repair, hath taught A bitter lesson; but it leaves me free: NOTES TO CANTO I. Note 1, page 9, line 11. Midst whom my own bright Beatrice bless'd, etc. The reader is requested to adopt the Italian pronunciation of Beatrice, sounding all the syllables. Canzone, in which Dante describes the person of Beatrice, strophe third. Note 3, page 11, line 15. I would have had my Florence great and free: etc. in which he represents right, generosity, and temperance as banished from among men, and seeking refuge from love, who inhabits his bosom. VOL. VII. 2 |