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 PROPHECY OF BANT 
 
 
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 BY T .ID BYRON. 
 
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 "•'Tis the sunset of life gives ire my"?'Jcal lore, 
 And coniing events cast their shadows before." 
 
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 M. CAREY AND 30NS, CUESNUT STREET 
 ,\ 1831. 
 
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THE 
 
 PROPHECY OF DANTE, 
 
THE 
 
 PROPHECY OF DANTE. 
 
 BY LORD BYRON. 
 
 (t, Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, 
 " And coming events cast their shadows before." 
 
 Campbell 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 M, CAREY AND SONS, CHESNUT STREET, 
 
 1821. 
 
T O 
 
 DEDICATION. $?* 
 
 LADY ! if for the cold and cloudy clime 
 
 Where 1 was born, but where I would not die, 
 Of the great Poet-Sire of Italy 
 
 I dare to. build the imitative rhyme, 
 
 Harsh Runic copy of the South's sublime, 
 Thou art the cause ; and howsoever I 
 Fall short of his immortal harmony, 
 
 Thy gentle heart will pardon me the crime. 
 Thou, in the pride of Beauty and of Youth, 
 Spak'st ; and for thee to speak and be obey'd 
 
 Are one ; but only in the sunny South 
 
 Such sounds are utter'd, and such charms dis- 
 play'd, 
 
 So sweet a language from so fair a mouth—. 
 Ah ! to what effort would it not persuade ? 
 
 Ravenna, June 21, 1819. 
 
 1* 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 In the course of a visit to the city of Ravenna 
 in the summer of 1819, it was suggested to the 
 author that having composed something on the 
 subject of Tasso's confinement, he should do the 
 same on Dante's exile—the tomb of the poet 
 forming one of the principal objects of interest 
 in that city, both to the native arid to the stran- 
 ger. 
 
 « On this hint I spake,'* and the result has 
 been the following four cantos, in terza rima, 
 now offered to the reader. If they are under- 
 stood and approved, it is my purpose to conti- 
 nue the poem in various other cantos to its na- 
 tural conclusion in the present age. The reader 
 is requested to suppose that Dante addresses 
 him in the interval between the conclusion of 
 the Divina Commedia and his death, and short- 
 ly before the latter event, foretelling the for- 
 
8 PREFACE. 
 
 tunes of Italy in general in the ensuing centu- 
 ries. In adopting this plan I have had in my 
 mind the Cassandra of Lycophron, and the Pro- 
 phecy of Nereus by Horace, as well as the Pro- 
 phecies of Holy Writ. The measure adopted 
 is the terza rima of Dante, which I am not 
 aware to have seen hitherto tried in our lan- 
 guage, except it may be by Mr. Hayley, of 
 whose translation I never saw but one extract, 
 quoted in the notes to Caliph Vathek ; so that 
 — if I do not err — this poem may be considered 
 as a metrical experiment. The cantos are short, 
 and about the same length of those of the poet 
 whose name I have borrowed, and most proba- 
 bly taken in vain. 
 
 Amongst the inconveniences of authors in the 
 present day, it is difficult for any who have a 
 name, good or bad, to escape translation. I 
 have had the fortune to see the fourth canto of 
 Childe Harold translated into Italian versi sci- 
 olti — 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 the present poem, being on a national topic, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 should chance to undergo the same fate, I would 
 request the Italian reader to remember that 
 when I have failed in the imitation of his great 
 " Padre Alighier," I have failed in imitating 
 that which all study and few understand, since 
 to this very day it is not yet settled what was 
 the meaning of the allegory in the first canto of 
 the Inferno, unless Count Marchetti's ingenious 
 and probable conjecture may be considered as 
 having decided the question. 
 
 He may also pardon my failure the more, as 
 I am not quite sure that he would he pleased 
 with my success, since the Italians, with a par- 
 donable nationality, are particularly jealous of 
 all that is left them as a nation— their litera- 
 ture -, and in the present bitterness of the clas- 
 sic and romantic war, are but ill disposed to 
 permit a foreigner even to approve or imitate 
 them without finding some fault with his ultra- 
 montane 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 
 
10 .PREFACE. 
 
 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. 
 
THfc 
 
 PROPHECY OF DANTE. 
 
 CANTO I. 
 
 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; 10 
 Midst whom my own bright Beatrice bless'd (1) 
 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 
 
12 PROPHECY OP DANTE. Canto 1. 
 
 So long hath prest, and the cold marble stone, 
 Thou sole pure seraph of my earliest love, 20 
 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 30 
 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, 40 
 
 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 ara old in days, 
 
Canto 1. PROPHECY OF DANTE. 13 
 
 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 ; \ 
 
 P Man wrongs, and Time avenges, and my name 
 May form a monument not all obscure, 51 
 
 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, 
 
 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 60 
 
 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, 70 
 But did not merit to expire by her, 
 2 
 
-I 
 
 u PROPHECY OF DANTE. Canto 1. 
 
 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 (4) 
 Of him, whom she denied a home, the grave. 
 But this shall not be granted ; let my dust 
 Lie where it falls 5 nor shall the soil which gave 
 Me breath, but in her sudden fury thrust 
 
 Me forth to breathe elsewhere, so reassume 80 
 My indignant bones, because her angry gust 
 Forsooth is over, and repeal'd her doom ; 
 
 No, she denied me what wa^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, toi I'd, travell'd, and each part 
 Of a true citizen fulfill'd, and saw 
 For his reward the Guelf's ascendant art 90 
 Pass his destruction even into a law. 
 
 These things are not made for forgetful ness, 
 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 5 yet— yet for her sake 
 
Casto 1. PROPHECY OP DANTE. IS 
 
 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, 101 
 Which would protect the murderess like a 
 shrine, 
 
 And save ten thousand foes by thy sole urn. 
 Though, like old Marius from Minturnse'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 110 
 
 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 Ate 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 120 
 
16 PROPHECY OP DANTE. Canto 1. 
 
 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 field- 
 In 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 ISO 
 
 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 140 
 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 
 
Canto 1. PROPHECY OF DANTE. IT 
 
 Did not my verse embalm full many an act 
 
 Worthless as they who wrought it: 'tis the doom 
 Of spirits of my order to be rack'd 150 
 
 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 — 160 
 
 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, 170 
 
 Within my all inexorable town, 
 
 Where yet my boys are, and that fatal she, (5) 
 
18 PROPHECY OF DANTE. Cawto 1. 
 
 Thejr 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 : 
 I have not vilely found, nor basely sought^ 
 ..... They made an Exile— not a slave of me. 
 
THE 
 
 PROPHECY OF DANTE. 
 
 CANTO II. 
 
 /The Spirit of the fervent days of Old, 
 
 When words were things that came to pass, and 
 
 thought 
 Flashed 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 10 
 
 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 
 
20 PROPHECY OP DANTE. Casto : 
 
 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, 20 
 
 My soul within thy language, which once set 
 With our old Roman sway in the wide West j 
 
 But I will make another tongue arise 
 
 As lofty and more sweet, in which exprest 
 The hero's ardour, 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 SI 
 
 Confess its barbarism when compared with thine. 
 
 This shalt thou owe to him thou didst so wrong, 
 Thy Tuscan Bard, the banish 'd Ghibelline. 
 
 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 then 
 
 station, 40 
 
 The unborn earthquake yet is in the womb. 
 
 The bloody chaos yet expects creation, 
 
Canto 2. PROPHECY OF DANTE. 21 
 
 But all things are disposing for thy doom j 
 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, 
 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, 50 
 
 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 61 
 
 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, 
 
32 PROPHECY OF DANTE. Canto % 
 
 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 : 70 
 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 79 
 
 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. 90 
 
 Nine moons shall rise o'er scenes like this and 
 set: (6) 
 
Casto 2. PROPHECY OP DANTE. 23 
 
 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. 100 
 
 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 nobler prey ? 
 Over Cambyses' host the desert spread 
 
 Her sandy ocean, and the sea waves' sway 
 Roll'd over Pharaoh and his thousands, — why, 
 Mountains and waters, do ye not as they ? til 
 
 And you, ye men ! Romans, who dare not die, 
 Sons of the conquerors who overthrew 
 Those who overthrew proud Xerxes, where yet lie 
 
 The dead whose tomb Oblivion never knew, 
 Are the Alps weaker than Thermopylee ? 
 
24 PROPHECY OF DAN^E. Cahto 2. 
 
 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 121 
 And makes your land impregnable, if earth 
 Could be so; but alone she will Dot war, 
 
 Yet aids the warrior worthy of his birth 
 In a soil where the mothers bring forth men i 
 Not so with those whose souls are little worth 3 
 
 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. 130 
 
 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, 140 
 
Cahto 2. PROPHECY OP DANTE. 25 
 
 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 III. 
 
 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'e r 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 erate of heaven, 10. 
 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 : 
 
28 PROPHECY OP DANTE. Canto 3. 
 
 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 20 
 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; SO 
 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, 1ere 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 ; 40 
 
 And from thine ashes boundless spirits rise 
 
Cak^o 3. PROPHECY OF DANTE. 2*. 
 
 To o-ive thee honour, and the earth delight; 
 Thy soil shall still he 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, (7) 
 Discoverers of new worlds, which take their 
 
 name ; (8) 
 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 — 50 
 
 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, 
 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. 61 
 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 
 3* 
 
30 PROPHECY OP DANTE. Canto 3. 
 
 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, 70 
 
 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 j how many a phrase 
 Sublime shall lavishM 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. , 
 
 (9) He who once enters in a tyrant's hail ' 80 
 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— (10) 
 The soul's emasculation saddens all 
 
 Plis 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, 90 
 
 Or force, or forge fit argument of song ! 
 
Canto 3. PROPHECY OF DANTE. 31 
 
 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 
 There shall be some who will not sing in vain, 
 And he, their prince, shall rank among my 
 
 peers, (11) 10 ° 
 
 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, 110 
 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 ; 
 
32 PROPHECY OP DANTE. Casto S. 
 
 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 ; 120 
 
 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 130 
 
 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 140 
 
Canto 3. PROPHECY OP DANTE. 33 
 
 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 tove in vain 
 Torture enough without a living tomb ? 
 
 Yet it will be so — he and his compeer, 
 
 The Bard of Chivalry, will both consume 150 
 In penury and pain too many a year, 
 
 And, dying in despondency, bequeath 
 
 To the kind world, which scarce will yield a 
 tear, 
 A hermitage enriching all who breathe 
 
 With the wealth of a genuine poet's soul, 
 
 And to their country a redoubled wreath, 
 Unmatch'd by time ; not Hellas can unroll 
 
 Through her olympiads two such names, though 
 one 
 
 Of hers be mighty;— and is this the whole 
 Of such men's destiny beneath the sun ? 160 
 
 Must all the finer thoughts, the thrilling sense, 
 
 The electric blood with which their arteries run, 
 Their body's self turn'd soul with the intense 
 
 Feeling of that which is, and fancy of 
 
34, PROPHECY OP DANTE. Casto S. 
 
 That which should be, to such a recompense 
 Conduct ? shall their bright plumage on the rough 
 
 Storm be still scattered P Yes, and it must be, 
 
 For, form'd of far too penetrable stuff, 
 These birds of Paradise but long to flee 
 
 Back to their native mansion, soon they find 170 
 
 Earth's mist with their pure pinions not agree, 
 And die or are degraded, for the mind N. 
 
 Succumbs to long infection, and despair, \ 
 
 And vulture passions flying close behind, / 
 Await the moment to assail and tear ; 
 
 And when at length the winged wanderers stoop, 
 
 Then is the prey -bird's triumph, then they share 
 The spoil, o'erpower'd at length by one fell swoop. 
 
 Yet some have been untouch'd, who learn'd to 
 bear, 
 
 Some whom no power could ever force to droop, 
 Who could resist themselves even, hardest care! 
 
 And task most hopeless; but some such have 
 been, 182 
 
 And if my name amongst the number were, 
 That destiny austere, and yet serene, 
 
 "Were prouder than more dazzling fame unblest ; 
 
 The Alp's snow summit nearer heaven is seen 
 Than the volcano's fierce eruptive crest, 
 
 Whose splendour from the black abyss is flung, 
 
Cakto 3. PROPHECY OF DANTE. 35 
 
 While the scorch'd mountain, from whose burn- 
 ing breast 
 
 A temporary torturing flame is wrung, 190 
 
 Shines for a night of terror, then repels 
 Its fire back to the hell from whence it sprung, 
 
 The hell which in its entrails ever dwells. 
 
PROPHECY OF DANTE. 
 
 CANTO IV. 
 
 Many are poets who have never penn'd 
 Their inspiration, and perchance the best : 
 They felt, and loved, and died, but would not 
 lend 
 
 Their thoughts to meaner beings; they compressed 
 The god within them, and rejoin*d the stars 
 Unlaurell'd upon earth, but far more blest 
 
 Than those who are degraded by the jars 
 Of passion, and their frailties link'd to fame, 
 Conquerors of high renown, but full of scars. 
 
 Many are poets but without the name, 10 
 
 For what is poesy but to create 
 From overfeeling good or ill ; and aim 
 
 At an external life beyond our fate, 
 And be the new Prometheus of new men, 
 Bestowing fire from heaven, and then, too late, 
 
 Finding the pleasure given repaid with pain, 
 And vultures to the heart ol the bestower, 
 4 
 
38 PROPHECY OF DANTE. Casto 4. 
 
 Who, having lavish'd his high gift in vain, 
 Lies chain'd to his lone rock by the sea-shore ? 
 
 So be it: we can bear. — But thus all they, 20 
 
 Whose intellect is an overmastering power 
 Which still recoils from its encumbering clay 
 
 Or lightens it to spirit, whatsoe'er 
 
 The form which their creations may essay, 
 Are bards ; the kindled marble's bust may wear 
 
 More poesy upon its speaking brow 
 
 Than aught less than the Homeric page may 
 bear ; 
 One noble stroke with a whole life may glow, 
 
 Or deify the canvas till it shine 
 
 With beauty so surpassing all below, SO 
 
 That they who kneel to idols so divine 
 
 Break no commandment, for high heaven is there 
 
 Transfused, transfigu rated : and the line 
 Of poesy, which peoples but the air 
 
 With thought and beings of our thought reflected, 
 
 Can do no more : then let the artist share 
 The palm, he shares the peril, and dejected 
 
 Faints o'er the labour unapproved — Alas! 
 
 Despair and Genius are too oft connected. 
 Within the ages which before me pass 40 
 
 Art shall resume and equal even the sway 
 
 Which with Apelles and old Phidias 
 She held in Hellas' unforgotten day. 
 
Canto 4. PROPHECY OF DANTE. 39 
 
 Ye shall be taught by Ruin to revive 
 
 The Grecian forms at least from their decay, 
 
 And Roman souls at last again shall live 
 In Roman works wrought by Italian hands, 
 And temples, loftier than the old temples, give 
 
 New wonders to the world; and while still stands 
 The austere Pantheon, into heaven shall soar 50 
 A dome, (12) its image, while the base expands 
 
 Into a fane surpassing all before, 
 
 Such as all flesh shall flock to kneel in: ne'er 
 Such sight hath been unfolded by a door 
 
 As this, to which all nations shall repair 
 
 And lay their sins at this huge gate of heaven. 
 And the bold Architect unto whose care 
 
 The daring charge to raise it shall be given, 
 Whom all arts shall acknowledge as their lord, 
 "Whether into the marble chaos driven 60 
 
 His chisel bid the Hebrew, (13) at whose word 
 Israel left Egypt, stop the waves in stone, 
 Or hues of hell be by his pencil pour'd 
 
 Over the damn'd before the Judgment throne, (14) 
 Such as I saw them, such as all shall see, 
 Or fanes be built of grandeur yet unknown, 
 
 The stream of his great thoughts shall spring from 
 me, (15) 
 The Ghibelline, who traversed the three realms 
 Which form the empire of eternity. 
 
49 PROPHECY OP DANTE. Cakto 4. 
 
 Amidst the clash of swords, and clang of helms, 
 The age which I anticipate, no less 71 
 
 Shall be the Age of Beauty, and while whelms 
 
 Calamity the nations with distress, 
 The genius of my country shall arise, 
 A Cedar towering o'er the Wilderness, 
 
 Lovely in all its branches to all eyes, 
 Fragrant as fair, and recognized afar, 
 Wafting its native incense through the skies. 
 
 Sovereigns shall pause amidst their sport of war 
 Wean'd for an hour from blood, to turn an< 
 
 gaze 
 On canvas or on stone ; and they who mar 
 
 AH beauty upon earth, compell'd to praise, 
 Shall feel the power of that which they destroy? 
 And Art's mistaken gratitude shall raise 
 
 To tyrants who but take her for a toy 
 Emblems and monuments, and prostitute 
 Her charms to pontiffs proud, (16) who but em- 
 ploy 
 
 The man of genius as the meanest brute 
 To bear a burthen, and to serve a need, 
 To sell his labours, and his soul to boot: 
 
 Who toils for nations may be poor indeed 
 
 But free; who sweats for monarchs is no more 
 
 Than the gilt chamberlain, who, clothed am 
 
 fce'd, 
 
Canto 4. PROPHECY OP DANTE. 41 
 
 Stands sleek and slavish, bowing at his door. 
 Oh, Power that rulest and inspirest ! how 
 Is it that they on earth, whose earthly power 
 
 Is likest thine in heaven in outward show, 
 Least like to thee in attributes divine, 
 Tread on the universal necks that bow, 
 
 And then assure us that their rights are thine ? 100 
 And how is it that they, the sons of fame, 
 "Whose inspiration seems to them to shine 
 
 From high, they whom the nations oftest name, 
 Must pass their days in penury and pain, 
 Or step to grandeur through the paths of shame, 
 
 And wear a deeper brand, and gaudier chain? 
 Or if their destiny be born aloof 
 From lowliness, or tempted thence in vain, 
 
 In their own souls sustain a harder proof, 
 
 The inner war of passions deep and fierce ? 1 10 
 Florence ! when thy harsh sentence razed my 
 roof, 
 ' I loved thee ; but the vengeance of my verse, 
 The hate of injuries which every year 
 Makes greater, and accumulates my curse, 
 
 Shall live, outliving all thou holdest dear, 
 
 Thy pride, thy wealth, thy freedom, and even 
 
 that, 
 
 The most infernal of all evils here, 
 
 The sway of petty tyrants in a state; 
 4* 
 
42 PROPHECY OF DANTE. Canto 4. 
 
 For such sway is not limited to kings, 
 
 And demagogues yield to them but in date 120 
 
 As swept off sooner; in all deadly things 
 
 Which make men hate themselves, and one an- 
 other, 
 In discord, cowardice, cruelty, all that springs 
 
 From Death the Sin-born's incest with his mother, 
 In rank oppression in its rudest shape, 
 The faction Chief is but the Sultan's brother*, 
 
 And the worst despot's far less human ape : 
 Florence ! when this lone spirit, which so long 
 Yearn'd, as the captive toiling at escape, 
 
 To fly back to thee in despite of wrong, 15( 
 
 An exile, saddest of all prisoners, 
 Who has the whole world for a dungeon strong, 
 
 Seas, mountains, and the horizon's verge for bars, 
 Which shut him from the sole small spot of earth 
 Where — whatsoe'er his fate — -he still were hers, 
 
 His country's, and might die where he had birth — 
 Florence ! when this lone spirit shall return 
 To kindred spirits, thou wilt feel my worth, 
 
 And seek to honour with an empty urn 
 The ashes thou shalt ne'er obtain — Alas ! 140 
 " What have I done to the.e, my people ?" (17) 
 Stern 
 
 Are all thy dealings, but in this they pass 
 The limits of man's common malice, for 
 
Ca*to4. PROPHECY OF DANTE. -4S 
 
 All that a citizen could be I was ; 
 Raised by thy will, all thine in peace or war, 
 
 And for this thou hast warr'd with me. — 'Tis 
 done: 
 
 I may not overleap the eternal bar 
 Built up between us, and will die alone, 
 
 Beholding, with the dark eye of a seer, 
 
 The evil days to gifted souls foreshown, 15Q 
 Foretelling them to those who will not hear, 
 
 As in the old time, till the hour be come 
 
 When Truth shall strike their eyes through many 
 a tear, 
 And make them own the Prophet in his tomb. 
 
NOT^S 
 
 PROPHECY OF DANTE. 
 
 Note 1, page 11, line 11. 
 Midst whom my own bright Beatrice bles&'d. 
 The reader is requested to adopt the Italian pronuncia- 
 tion of Beatrice, sounding all the syllables. 
 . Note 2, page 12, line 9. 
 My Paradise had still been incomplete. 
 
 "Che sol per le beile op re 
 
 « Che fanno in Cielo il sole e 1' altre stelle 
 
 " Dentro di lui si crede il Paradiso, 
 
 " Cosi se guardi fiso 
 
 " Pensar ben dei ch' ogni terren' piacere" 
 Canzone, in which Dante describes the person of Beatrice* 
 Strophe third. 
 
 Note 3, page 13, line 15. 
 I -would have had my Florence great and free. 
 
 " V Esilio che m' e dato onor mi tegno. 
 
 ***** 
 
 " Cader tra' buoni e pur di lode degno." 
 
 Sonnet of Dante, 
 in which he represents Right, Generosity, and Temper- 
 ance, as banished from among men, and seeking refuge 
 from Love, who inhabits his bosom. 
 
 Note 4, page 14, line 4. 
 The dust she dooms to scatter. 
 " Ut si quis predictorum ullo tempore in fortiam dicti 
 communis pervenerit, talis perveniens igne comburatnr, mc 
 yuod moriatur." 
 
46 NOTES TO THE 
 
 Second sentence of Florence against Dante, and the four- 
 teen accused with him — The Latin is worthy of the sen- 
 tence. 
 
 . Note 5, page IT, last line. 
 
 Where yet my boys are, and that fatal she. 
 
 This lady, whose name was Gemma, sprung from one of 
 the most powerful Guelf families, named Donati. Corso 
 Donati was the principal adversary of he Ghibellines. She 
 is described as being " Jidmodum morosa, ut de Xantippe 
 Socratis philosophi conjuge scriptum esse legimus," according 
 to GiannozzoManetti. Bui Lionardo Areiino is scandalized 
 with Boccace, in his life of Dante, for saying that literary 
 men should not marry. " Qui il Boccaccio'non ha pazienza, 
 e dice, le mogli esser contrarie angli sludj ; e non si ricor- 
 da che Socrate il piu nobile filosofo che mai fusse ebbe 
 moglie, e figliuoli e uffici della Repubblica mella sua Cit- 
 ta; e Aristotele che, &c. &c. ebbe due mogli in varj tempi, 
 ed ebbe figliuoli, e ricchezze assai.— E Marco Tullio— e 
 Catone — e Varrone, e Seneca — ebbero moglie," &c. &c. It 
 is odd that honest Leonardo's examples, with the excep- 
 tion of Seneca, and, for any thing 1 know, of Aristotle, are 
 not the most felicitous. Tully's Tcentia, and Socrates' 
 Xantippe, by no means contributed to their husbands' hap- 
 piness, whatever they might do to their philosophy — Cato 
 gave away his wife — of Varro's we know nothing— and of 
 Seneca's, only that she was disposed to die with him, but 
 recovered, and lived several years afterwards. But, says 
 Lionardo, " L' uomo e animate civile, secondo piace a tutti 
 i filosofi." And thence concludes that the grfearest proof 
 of the animal's civism is "la prima congiunzione, dalla 
 quale multiplicata nasce la Citia." 
 
 Note 6, page 22, last line. 
 Nine moons shall rise o'er scenes like this and set. 
 See "Sacco di Roma," generally atlnbuied *o Guicciar- 
 dini. There is another wriuen by a Jacopo Buonaparte, 
 ©entiluomo Samminiatese che vi si trovo presente. 
 
PROPHECY OF DANTE. 47 
 
 Note 7, page 29, line S. 
 
 Conquerors on foreign shores, and the far wave. 
 
 Alexander of Parma, Spinola, Pescara, Eugene of Savoy, 
 Montecucco. 
 
 Note 8, page 29, line 6. 
 Discoverers of new worlds, which take their name. 
 Columbus, Americus Vespusius, Sebastian Cabot. 
 Note 9, page 30, line 15. 
 He who once enters in a tyrant's hall, &c< 
 A verse from the Greek tragedians, with which Pompey 
 took leave of Cornelia on entering the boat in which he 
 was slain. 
 
 Note 10 page 30, line 18. 
 
 And the first day which sees the chain enthral, &c. 
 
 The verse and sentiment are taken from Homer. 
 
 Note 11, page 31, line 9. 
 
 And he, their prince, shall rank among my peers, 
 
 Petrarch. 
 
 Note 12, page 39, line 8. 
 A dome, its image. 
 The cupola of St. Peter's, 
 
 Note 13, page 39, line 18. 
 His chisel bid the Hebrew. 
 The statue of Moses on the monument of Julius IJ. 
 SONETTO. 
 Di Giovanni Battista Zappi. 
 Chi e costui, che in dura pietra scolto, 
 Siede gigante; e le piu illustre, e conte 
 Prove dell' arte avvanza, e ha vive, e 
 Le labbia si, che le parole s 
 Quest' £ Mose ; ben me'l dice 
 
48 NOTES TO THE PROPHECY OP DANTE. 
 
 Onor del mento, e' 1 doppio raggio in fronte, 
 
 Quest' e Mose, quando scendea del monte, 
 
 E gran parte del Nume avea nel volto. 
 Tal era allor, che le sonanti, e vaste 
 
 Acque ei sospese a se d' intorno, e tale. 
 
 Quando il mar chiuse, e ne fe tomba altrui. 
 E voi sue turbe un rio vitello alzate ? 
 
 Alzata aveste imago a questa eguale ! 
 
 Ch' era men fallo 1' adorar costui. 
 
 Note 14, page 39, line 21. 
 Over the damn'd before the Judgment throne. 
 The Last Judgment in the Sistine chapel. 
 Note 15, page 39, line 24. 
 The stream of Ms great thoughts shall spring from me. 
 I have read somewhere (if 1 do not err, for I ^not re- 
 collect where) that Dante was so great a fav ounteofM- 
 rhll ^Aneiolo's that he had designed the whole of the Di- 
 tt Commedia; but that the vofume containing these stu- 
 dies was lost by sea. 
 
 Note 16, page 40, line 18. 
 Her charms to pontiffs proud, -who but employ, &c. 
 See the treatment of Michel Angiolo by Julius II., and 
 his neglect by Leo X. 
 
 Note 17, page 42, line 23. 
 
 « What have I done to thee, my people ?' 
 
 « E scrisse P iu volte non solamente a P"*^Sg*g 
 
 del reesrimento, ma ancora al popolo, e intra 1 aitre un 
 
 E^stoff Ssai lunga che comincia:-' Papule nu, amd feci 
 
 T ' ?? " Vita di Dante scrim da Lionardo Aretino; 
 
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