LITMIR.BIZ

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with gods we fancied slain.

       Long time I watched, and surely hoped to see

       Some goat-foot Pan make merry minstrelsy

       Amid the reeds! some startled Dryad-maid

       In girlish flight! or lurking in the glade,

       The soft brown limbs, the wanton treacherous face

       Of woodland god! Queen Dian in the chase,

       White-limbed and terrible, with look of pride,

       And leash of boar-hounds leaping at her side!

       Or Hylas mirrored in the perfect stream.

       O idle heart! O fond Hellenic dream!

       Ere long, with melancholy rise and swell,

       The evening chimes, the convent’s vesper bell,

       Struck on mine ears amid the amorous flowers.

       Alas! alas! these sweet and honied hours

       Had whelmed my heart like some encroaching sea,

       And drowned all thoughts of black Gethsemane.

      VI.

      O lone Ravenna! many a tale is told

       Of thy great glories in the days of old:

       Two thousand years have passed since thou didst see

       Caesar ride forth to royal victory.

       Mighty thy name when Rome’s lean eagles flew

       From Britain’s isles to far Euphrates blue;

       And of the peoples thou wast noble queen,

       Till in thy streets the Goth and Hun were seen.

       Discrowned by man, deserted by the sea,

       Thou sleepest, rocked in lonely misery!

       No longer now upon thy swelling tide,

       Pine-forest-like, thy myriad galleys ride!

       For where the brass-beaked ships were wont to float,

       The weary shepherd pipes his mournful note;

       And the white sheep are free to come and go

       Where Adria’s purple waters used to flow.

       O fair! O sad! O Queen uncomforted!

       In ruined loveliness thou liest dead,

       Alone of all thy sisters; for at last

       Italia’s royal warrior hath passed

       Rome’s lordliest entrance, and hath worn his crown

       In the high temples of the Eternal Town!

       The Palatine hath welcomed back her king,

       And with his name the seven mountains ring!

       And Naples hath outlived her dream of pain,

       And mocks her tyrant! Venice lives again,

       New risen from the waters! and the cry

       Of Light and Truth, of Love and Liberty,

       Is heard in lordly Genoa, and where

       The marble spires of Milan wound the air,

       Rings from the Alps to the Sicilian shore,

       And Dante’s dream is now a dream no more.

       But thou, Ravenna, better loved than all,

       Thy ruined palaces are but a pall

       That hides thy fallen greatness! and thy name

       Burns like a grey and flickering candle-flame

       Beneath the noonday splendour of the sun

       Of new Italia! for the night is done,

       The night of dark oppression, and the day

       Hath dawned in passionate splendour: far away

       The Austrian hounds are hunted from the land,

       Beyond those ice-crowned citadels which stand

       Girdling the plain of royal Lombardy,

       From the far West unto the Eastern sea.

       I know, indeed, that sons of thine have died

       In Lissa’s waters, by the mountain-side

       Of Aspromonte, on Novara’s plain,—

       Nor have thy children died for thee in vain:

       And yet, methinks, thou hast not drunk this wine

       From grapes new-crushed of Liberty divine,

       Thou hast not followed that immortal Star

       Which leads the people forth to deeds of war.

       Weary of life, thou liest in silent sleep,

       As one who marks the lengthening shadows creep,

       Careless of all the hurrying hours that run,

       Mourning some day of glory, for the sun

       Of Freedom hath not shewn to thee his face,

       And thou hast caught no flambeau in the race.

       Yet wake not from thy slumbers,—rest thee well,

       Amidst thy fields of amber asphodel,

       Thy lily-sprinkled meadows,—rest thee there,

       To mock all human greatness: who would dare

       To vent the paltry sorrows of his life

       Before thy ruins, or to praise the strife

       Of kings’ ambition, and the barren pride

       Of warring nations! wert not thou the Bride

       Of the wild Lord of Adria’s stormy sea!

       The Queen of double Empires! and to thee

       Were not the nations given as thy prey!

       And now—thy gates lie open night and day,

       The grass grows green on every tower and hall,

       The ghastly fig hath cleft thy bastioned wall;

       And where thy mailed warriors stood at rest

       The midnight owl hath made her secret nest.

       O fallen! fallen! from thy high estate,

       O city trammelled in the toils of Fate,

       Doth nought remain of all thy glorious days,

       But a dull shield, a crown of withered bays!

       Yet who beneath this night of wars and fears,

       From tranquil tower can watch the coming years;

       Who can foretell what joys the day shall bring,

       Or why before the dawn the linnets sing?

       Thou, even thou, mayst wake, as wakes the rose

       To crimson splendour from its grave of snows;

       As the rich cornfields rise to red and gold

       From these brown lands, now stiff with Winter’s cold;

       As from the storm-rack comes a perfect star!

       O much-loved city! I have wandered far

       From the wave-circled islands of my home;

       Have seen the gloomy mystery of the Dome

       Rise slowly from the drear Campagna’s way,

       Clothed in the royal purple of the day:

       I from the city of the violet crown

       Have watched the sun by Corinth’s hill go down,

       And marked the ‘myriad laughter’ of the sea

       From starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady;

       Yet back to thee returns my perfect love,

      

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