The Prophecy of Dante.

CANTO THE FIRST.

ONCE more in man's frail world! which I had left
So long, that 'twas 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 Beatrice1 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.2 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 vain-glorious list of those
Who dabble in the pettiness of fame,

(1) The reader is requested to adopt the Italian pronunciation of Beatrice, sounding all the syllables.

(2) "Che sol per le belle opre

Che fanno in Cielo il sole e l' altre stelle

Dentro di lui, si crede il Paradiso,

Cosi se guardi fiso

Pensar ben déi ch' ogni terren' piacere."

Canzone, in which Dante describes the person of Beatrice, Strophe third.

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 ;3
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 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 Guelf'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,

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,

Thou, Italy! so fair that Paradise, Revived in thee, blooms forth to man restored: Ah! must the sons of Adam lose it twice ?

Thou, Italy! whose ever golden fields, Plough'd by the sunbeams solely, would suffice For the world's granary; thou, whose sky heaven gilds

With brighter stars, and robes with deeper blue; Thou, in whose pleasant places Summer builds Her palace, in whose cradle Empire grew,

And form'd the Eternal City's ornaments From spoils of kings whom freemen overthrew ; Birthplace of heroes, sanctuary of saints,

Where earthly first, then heavenly glory made Her home; thou, all which fondest fancy paints, And finds her prior vision but portray'd

In feeble colours, when the eye-from the Alp Of horrid snow, and rock, and shaggy shade Of desert-loving pine, whose emerald scalp

Nods to the storm-dilates and dotes o'er thee, And wistfully implores, as 'twere for help To see thy sunny fields, my Italy,

Nearer and nearer yet, and dearer still The more approach'd, and dearest were they free, Thou-thou must wither to each tyrant's will: The Goth hath been-the German, Frank, and Hun Are yet to come,-and on the imperial hill Ruin, already proud of the deeds done

By the old barbarians, there awaits the new, Throned on the Palatine, while lost and won Rome at her feet lies bleeding; and the hue

Of human sacrifice and Roman slaughter Troubles the clotted air, of late so blue, And deepens into red the saffron water

:

Of Tiber, thick with dead; the helpless priest,
And still more helpless nor less holy daughter,
Vow'd to their God, have shrieking fled, and ceased
Their ministry the nations take their prey.
Iberian, Almain, Lombard, and the beast
And bird, wolf, vulture, more humane than they
Are; these but gorge the flesh and lap the gore
Of the departed, and then go their way; ·
But those, the human savages, explore
All paths of torture, and insatiate yet,
With Ugolino hunger prowl for more.

Nine moons shall rise o'er scenes like this and set;1
The chiefless army of the dead, which late
Beneath the traitor Prince's banner met,
Hath left its leader's ashes at the gate;

Had but the royal Rebel lived, perchance
Thou hadst been spared, but his involved thy fate.
Oh! Rome, the spoiler or the spoil of France,
From Brennus to the Bourbon, never, never
Shall foreign standard to thy walls advance,
But Tiber shall become a mournful river.

Oh! when the strangers pass the Alps and Po, Crush them, ye rocks! floods whelm them, and for ever!

Why sleep the idle avalanches so,

To topple on the lonely pilgrim's head? Why doth Eridanus but overflow The peasant's harvest from his turbid bed? Were not each barbarous horde a fobler prey? Over Cambyses' host the desert spread Her sandy ocean, and the sea-waves' sway

(1) Fee "Sacco di Roma," generally attributed to Guicciar

dini. There is another written by a Jacopo Buonaparte.

Roll'd 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 o'erthrew 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!
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,

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.

The Prophecy of Dante.

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 harp-string 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 gleans 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 then, but not to theeShall they be glorious, and thou still the same? Oh! more than these illustrious far shall be

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,

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 feather'd king, But fly more near the earth; how many a phrase Sublime shall lavish'd be on some sniall prince

(1) Alexander of Parma, Spinola, Pescara, Eugene of Savoy, Montecucco.

(2) Columbus, Americus Vespucius, Sebastian Cabot. (3) A verse from the Greek tragedians, with which Pompey

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 hall s

4

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

But out of the long file of sonneteers

There shall be some who will not sing in vain, And he, their prince, shall rank among my peers,5 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

took leave of Cornelia on entering the boat in which he was