JAPHET. NOAII. AZAZIEL. RAPHAEL. AzAzIEL. NOAH. And aliens from your God, SAMIASA. But ours is with thee: we will bear ye far To some untroubled star, Where thou and Anah shall partake pur lot: And if thou dost not wcep for thy lost earth, Are howling from the mountain's bosom: Our forfeit heaven shall also be forgot. ANAH. And mountains, land, and woods, when ye are not, Who shall dry up my tears? Thy spirit-lord. Fear not, though we are shut from heaven, Yet much is ours, whence we cannot be driven. Shall henceforth be but weak: the flaming sword, Which chased the first-born out of paradise, Still Aashes in the angelic hands. The sun! the sun! lle riseth, but his better light is gone; It cannot slay us: threaten dust with death, And talk of weapons unto that which bleeds! What are thy swords in our immortal cyes? RAPHAEL. The clouds return into the hues of night, The moment cometh to approve thy strength: Save where their brazen-colour'd edges streak And learn at length The verge where brighter morns were wont to break. How vain to war with what thy God commands : Thy former force was in thy faith. Enter Mortals, fying for refuge. Chorus of Mortals. The heavens and earth are mingling-God! oh God! Hence to where our all-hallow'd ark uprears What have we done? Yet spare ! Its safe and wreckless sides. Hark! even the forest beasts howl forth their prayer! The dragon crawls from out his den, To herd in terror innocent with men ; Yet, yet, Jehovah! yet withdraw thy rod Hear not man only but all nature plead ! RAPHAEL. Farewell, thou earth! ye wretched sons of clay, I cannot, must not aid you. 'Tis decreed ! [Exit RAPHAEL. While others, fix'd as rocks, await the word At which their wrathful vials shall be pour'd. No azure more shall robe the firmament, Nor spangled stars be glorious : death hath risen: NOAH. In the sun's place a pale and ghastly glare AZAZIEL. To which the elements again repair, With sobs the salt foam of the swelling waters; The shelter of these wings thou shalt be safe, As was the eagle's nestling once within Nor perish like Heaven's children with man's daugh- Its mother's.—Let the coming chaos chafe ters, With all its elements! Heed not their din! A brighter world than this, where thou shalt breathe These darken'd clouds are not the only skies. (AZAZIEL and Samiasa fly off, and disapper | Between our strength and the eternal might ! with Anal and AHOLIBAMAN. NOAH. JAPHET. JAPHET. RAPHAEL. AHOLIBAMAH. JAPHET. The corpses of the world of thy young days: They are gone! They have disappear'd amidst the roar Then to Jehovah raise of the forsaken world; and never more, Thy song of praise ! Whether they live, or die with all earth's life, A WOMAX. Now near its last, can aught restore Blessed are the dead Who dic in the Lord ! And though the waters be o'er earth outspread, Yet, as His word, Oh son of Noah! mercy on thy kind ! Be the decree adored! What, wilt thou leave us all-all-all behind ? He gave me life-He taketh but While safe amidst the elemental strife, The breath which is His own: And though these eyes should be for ever shut, Nor longer this weak voice before His throne Be heard in supplicating tone, Still blessed be the Lord, For what is past, For that which is : For all are His, From first to last- Time-space-eternity-life-death The vast known and immeasurable unknown. What is there in this milk of mine, thal Jeath He made, and can unmake; And shall I, for a little gasp of breath, Blaspheme and groan? No; let me die, as I have lived, in faith, Nor quiver, though the universe may quake ! Chorus of Mortals. Where shall we fly? Not to the mountains high ; For now their torrents rush with double roar, To meet the ocean, which, advancing still, Already grasps each drowning hill, Nor leaves an unsearch'd cave. Enter a Woman. Oh, save me, save! Our valley is no more : My father and my father's tent, My brethren and my brethren's herds, We deem our curses vain; we must expire; The pleasant trees that o'er our noon-day bent, But, as we know the worst, And sent forth evening songs from sweetest birds, Why should our hymns be raised, our knees be bent The little rivulet which freshen'd all Before the implacable Omnipotent, Our pastures green, Since we must fall the same ? No more are to be seen. If He hath made earth, let it be His shame, When to the mountain cliff I climb'd this morn, To make a world for torture :-Lo! they come, I turn'd to bless the spot, And not a leaf appear'd about to fall; And now they are no! Why was í born ? JAPHET. To die! in youth to die; And happier in that doom, So massy, vast, yet green in their old age, Than to behold the universal tomb Which I Am thus condemn'd to weep above in vain. Why, when all perish, why must I remain ? They meet the seas, [The Waters rise : Men fly in every direction, And shut out God from our beseeching eyes. many are overtaken by the waves; the Chorus of Mortals disperses in search of safety up the Fly, son of Noah, Ay, and take thine ease Mountains ; JAPHET remains upon a rock, lu thine allotted ocean-tent; while the Ark floats lowards him in the disAnd view all floating o'er the element, tance. WOMAN The Prophecy of Dante. 'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, CAMPBELL. DEDICATION. into Italian versi sciolti—that is, a poem written in the Spenserean stanza into blank verse, without regard to the natural divisions of the stanza, or of the sense. If Lods! if for the cold and cloudy clime Where I was born, but where I would not die, the present poem, being on a national topic, should chance to undergo the same fate, I would request the Of the great poet-sire of Italy I dare to build the imitative rhyme, Italian reader to remember, that when I have failed in the imitation of his great “Padre Alighier,” I have Harsh Runic copy of the South's sublime, failed in imitating that which all study and few under Thou art the cause; and, howsoe'er I Fall short of his immortal harmony, stand, since to this very day it is not yet settled what Thy gentle heart will pardon me the crime. was the meaning of the allegory in the first canto of the Inferno, unless Count Marchetti's ingenious and Thou, in the pride of beauty and of youth, Spakest; and for thee to speak and be obey'd probable conjecture may be considered as having de cided the question. Are one; but only in the sunny South He may also pardon my failure the more, as I am Such sounds are utter'd, and such charms display'd, not quite sure that he would be pleased with my sucSo sweet a language from so fair a mouth cess, since the Italians, with a pardonable nationality, Ah! to what effort would it not persuade? are particularly jealous of all that is left them as a naRavenna, June 21, 1819. tion-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, withPREFACE. out 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 In the course of a visit to the city of Ravenna, in Milton, or if a translation of Tonti, or Pindemonte, or the summer of 1819, it was suggested to the author Arici, should be held up to the rising generation, as a that, having composed something on the subject of model for their future poetical --ssays. But I perceive Tasso's confinement, he should do the same on Dante's that I am deviating into an addr ss to the Italian reader, exile—the tomb of the poet forming one of the princi- when my business is with the Eglish one, and, be they pal objects of interest in that city, both to the native few or many, I must take my leave of both. and to the stranger. "On this hint I spake," and the result has been the THE following four cantos, in terza rima, now offered to the reader. If they are understood and approved, it is my PROPHECY OF DANTE. purpose to continue the poem in various other cantos to its natural conclusion in the present age. The reader is requested to suppose that Dante addresses him in CANTO I. the interval between the conclusion of the Divina Commedia and his death, and shortly before the latter event, Once more in man's frail world! which I had leit foretelling the fortunes of Italy in general in the ensu- So long that 't was forgotten ; and I feel ing centuries. In adopting this plan, I have had in my The weight of clay again,—too soon bereft mind the Cassandra of Lycophron, and the Prophecy of the immortal vision which could heal of Nereus by Horace, as well as the Prophecies of My earthly sorrows, and to God's own skies Holy Writ. The measure adopted is the terza rima of List me from that deep gulf without repeal, Dante, which I am not aware to have seen hitherto Where late my ears rung with the damned cries tried in our language, except it may be by Mr. Hayley, Of souls in hopeless bale; and from that place of whose translation I never saw but one extract, Of lesser torment, whence men may arise quoted in the notes of Caliph Vathek; so that--if I Pure from the fire to join the angelic race; do not err—this poem may be considered as a metrical 'Midst whom my own bright Beatrice bless'd! experiment. The cantos are short, and about the same My spirit with her light; and to the base length of those of the poet whose name I have bor- of the Eternal Triad! first, last, best, rowed, and most probably taken in vain. Mysterious, three, sole, infinite, great God ! Amongst the inconveniences of authors in the pres- Soul universal ! led the mortal guest, ent day, it is difficult for any who have a name, good Unblasted by the glory, though he trod or bad, to escape translation. I have had the fortune From star to star to reach the almighty throne. u see the fourth canto of Childe Harold translated | Oh Beatrice! whose sweet limbs the sod 2 R2 63 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, avenges, and my name May form a monument not all obscure, Though such was not my ambition's end cr aim, To add to the vain-glorious 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 classid With conquerors, and virtue's other foes, In bloody chronicles of ages past. I would have had my Florence great and free :) On 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 she would be proud to have The dust she dooms to scatter, 4 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 Je bıcath, but in her sudden fury thrust Me forth to breathe elsewhere, so reassume My indignant bones, because her angry gust No-she denied me what was mine-my roof, Toc long her armed wrath hath kept aloof The breast which would have bled for her, the heart That beat, the mind that was tempiation-proof, The man who fought, toild, travell’d, and each part Of a true citizen fulfillid, and saw For his reward the Gucit's ascendant art Florence shall be forgotten first; too raw Of such cndurance 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 hallowed 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'er-arch My brow with hopes of triumph,-let them go! Such are the last infirmities of those Who long have suf" sr'd more than mortal woe, And yet, being morta 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 neck-Great God! Take these thoughts from me-to thy hands I yield My many wrongs, and thine almighty rod 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 comes backo 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, Worthless as they who wrought it: 't is the doom a a in life, to wear their hearts out, and consume This shalt thou owe to him thou didst so wrong, The name of him-who now is but a name. Lie like the ocean waves cre winds arise, Heaving in dark and sullen undulation, And mine at least hath cost me dear: to die The storms yet sleep, the clouds still keep their station, Is nothing ; but to wither thus-o tame The unborn earthquake yet is in the womb, My mind down from its own infinity The bloody chaos yet expects creation, To live in narrow ways with little men, But all things are disposing for thy doom; A common sight to every common eye, The elements await but for the word, A wanderer, while even wolves can find a den, “Let there be darkness !" and thou grow'st a tomb! Ripp'd from all kindred, from all home, all things Yes! thou, so beautiful, shalt feel the sword, That make communion sweet, and soften pair Thou, Italy! so fair that paradise, To feel me in the solitude of kings, Revived in thee, blooms forth to man restored : Without the power that makes them bear a crown- Ah! must the sons of Adam lose it twice? To envy every dove his nest and wings Thou, Italy! whose ever-golden fields, Which wast him where the Apennine looks down Plough'd by the suribeams solely, would suffice Ori Arno, till he perches, it may be, For the world's granary; thou whose sky heaven gilds Within my all-incxorable town, With brighter stars, and robes with deeper blue; Where yet my boys are, and that fatal she, Thou, in whose pleasant places summer builds Their mother, the cold partner who hath brought Her palace, in whose cradle empire grew, Destruction for a dewry—this to see And form’d the eternal city's ornaments And fcel, and know without repair, hath taught From spoils of kings whom freemen overthrew; A bitter lesson; but it leaves me free: Birth-place of heroes, sanctuary of saints, I have not vilely found, nor basely sought, — Where earthly first, then heavenly glory made Tney made an exile-not a slave of me. 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 show, and rock and shaggy shade Nods to the storm-dilates and dotes o'er thee, l'he spirit of the fervent days of old, And wistfully implores, as 't were, for help When words were things that came to pass, and To see thy sunny fields, my Italy, thought Nearer and nearer yet, and dearer still Fiasn'd o'er the future, bidding men behold The more approach'd, and dearest were they free, Their children's children's doom already brought Thou--thou must wither to each tyrant's will : Forth from the abyss of time which is to be, The Goth hath been,--the German, Frank, and Hus, The chaos of events, where lie half-wrought Are yet to come,-and on the Imperial hill Shapes that must undergo mortality; Ruin, already proud of the deeds done What the great seers of Israel wore within, By the old barbarians, there awaits the new, That spirit was on them, and is on me, Throned on the Palatine, while, lost and won, And if, Cassandra-like, amidst the din Rome at her fect lies bleeding; and the hue Of conflict none will hear, or hearing heed, Of human sacrihce and Roman slaughter This voice from out the wilderness, the sin Troubles the clotted air, of late so blue, Be theirs, and my own feelings be my meed, And deepens into rad the saffron water The only guerdon I have ever known. Of Tiber, thick with dead; the helpless priest, Hast thou not bled ? and hast thou still to bleed, And still more helpless nor less holy daughter, Italia? Ah! to me such things, Toreshown Vow'd to their god, have shrieking fled, and ceased With dim sepulchral light, bid me forgot Their ministry: the nations take their prey, In thine irreparable wrongs my own; Iberian, Almain, Lombard, and the beast We can have but one country, and even ret And bird, wolf, vulture, more humane than they Thou 'rt mine-my bones shall be wit in thy breast, Are; these but gorge the flo:h and lap the gore My sond within thy language, which cace set of the departed, and then go their way ; With our old Roman sway in the wide west; But those, the human savages, explore But I will make another tongue arise All paths of torture, and insatiale yet As lofty and more sweet, in which exprest With Ugolino hunger prowl for more. he hero's ardour, or the lover's sighs, Nine moons shall rise o'er scenes like this and set;' Shall find alike such sounds for every theme The chicfless army of the dead, which late That erery word, as brilliant as thy skies, Bencath the traitor prince's banner mct, Shall realize a poet's proudest dream, Hath left its leader's ashes at the gate; And make thee Europe's nightingale of song; Had but the royal rebel lived, perchance So that all present speech to thine shall seem Thou hadst been spared, but his involved ihy law The note of meaner birds, and every tongue Oh! Rome, the spoiler of the spoil of France, Confess its barbarism when compared with thine. From Brennus to the Bourbon, never, never 1 |