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 An eye to gaze upon their civil rage, Did not my verse embalm full many an act In life, to wear their hearts out, and consume To live in narrow ways with little men, Ripp'd from all kindred, from all home, all things Without the power that makes them bear a crown- 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: THE PROPHECY OF DANTE. CANTO II. THE Spirit of the fervent days of Old, When words were things that came to pass, and thought Flash'd o'er the future, bidding men behold Their children's children's doom already brought What the great Seers of Israel wore within, Of conflict none will hear, or hearing heed Hast thou not bled ? and hast thou still to bleed, 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, With our old Roman sway in the wide West; Shall find alike such sounds for every theme And make thee Europe's nightingale of song; Confess its barbarism when compared with thine. The storms yet sleep, the clouds still keep their station, The bloody chaos yet expects creation, But all things are disposing for thy doom 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? |