XXXIX. Peace to Torquato's injur'd shade ! 'twas his Each year brings forth its millions; but how long And not the whole combin'd and countless throng Condens❜d their scatter'd rays, they would not form a sun, Great as thou art, yet parallel'd by those, The Tuscan father's comedy divine; Then, not unequal to the Florentine, The southern SCOTT, the minstrel who call'd forth And, like the Ariosto of the North, Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightly worth, XLI. The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust 16 The iron crown of laurel's mimic'd leaves; Nor was the ominous element unjust, For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves 17 Is of the tree nó bolt of thunder cleaves, And the false semblance but disgraced his brow; Yet still, if fondly Superstition grieves, Know, that the lightning sanctifies below 18 Whate'er it strikes ;-yon head is doubly sacred now. XLII. ITALIA! oh ITALIA! thou who hast 19 The fatal gift of beauty, which became A funeral dower of present woes and past, On thy sweet brow is sorrow plough'd by shame, Less lovely or more powerful, and could'st claim XLIII. Then might'st thou more appal; or, less desired, Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored For thy destructive charms; then, still untired, Quaff blood and water; nor the stranger's sword Victor or vanquish'd, thou the slave of friend or foe. XLIV. Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him, 20 The Roman friend of Rowe's least-mortal mind, し The friend of Tully: as my bark did skim And CORINTH on the left; I lay reclined In ruin, even as he had seen the desolate sight; For Time hath not rebuilt them, but uprear'd The Roman saw these tombs in his own age, Sad wonder, and his yet surviving page The moral lesson bears, drawn from such pilgrimage. XLVI. That page is now before me, and on mine His country's ruin added to the mass Of perish,d states he mourn'd in their decline, And I in desolation: all that was Of then destruction is; and now, alas! Rome Rome imperial, bows her to the storm, The skeleton of her Titanic form, 21 Wrecks of another world, whose ashes still are warm. XLVII. Yet, ITALY! through every other land Thy wrongs should ring, and shall, from side to side Was then our guardian, and is still our guide; Nations have knelt to for the keys of heaven! Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven, XLVIII But Arno wins us to the fair white walls, A softer feeling for her fairy halls. Girt by her theatre of hills! she reaps Her corn, and wine, and oil, and Plenty leaps And buried Learning rose, redeem'd to a new morn. XLIX. There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills 22 The air around with beauty; we inhale The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils Part of his immortality; the veil Of heaven is half undrawn; within the pale ; We stand, and in that form and face behold What Mind can make, when Nature's self would fail; Envy the innate flash, which such a soul could mould; L. and know not where, We We stand as captives, and would not depart. Where Pedantry gulls Folly-we have eyes: Blood-pulse—and breast, confirm the Dardan Shepherd's prize. LI. Appear❜dst thou not to Paris in this guise? Or to more deeply blest Anchises? or? In all thy perfect goddess-ship, when lies Before thee thy own vanquish'd Lord of War? And gazing in thy face as toward a star, Laid on thy lap, his eyes to thee upturn, Feeding on thy sweet cheek! 23 while thy lips are With lava kisses melting while they burn, Showered on his eyelids, brow, and mouth, as from an urn! LII. Glowing, and circumfused in speechless love, Their full divinity inadequate |