Me breath, but in her sudden fury thrust
Me forth to breathe elsewhere, so reassume

My indignant bones, because her angry gust
Forsooth is over, and repeal'd her doom;

No, she denied me what was 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, toil'd, travell❜d, and each part
Of a true citizen fulfill'd, and saw

For his reward the Guelf's ascendant art
Pass his destruction even into a law.

These things are not made for forgetfulness,
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; 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 hallow'd 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'erarch
My brow with hopes of triumph,-let them go!
Such are the last infirmities of those

Who long have suffer'd more than mortal woc,
And yet being mortal still, have no repose

But on the pillow of Revenge-Revenge,

7 [When Marius was defeated in the civil war between himself and Sylla, he escaped his pursuers by plunging chin deep into the marshes of Minturnum, between Rome and Naples. He then sailed for Carthage, and had no sooner landed than he was ordered by the governor to quit Africa. On his subsequently gaining the ascen-dancy, Marius justified the massacre of Sylla's adherents by the humiliation he had. suffered himself at Minturnum and Carthage.]

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 necks-Great God! Take these thoughts from me-to thy hands I yield My many wrongs, and thine almighty rod 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 sce

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 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
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,

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

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-
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,

Within my all inexorable town,

Where yet my boys are, and that fatal she,3

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:
I have not vilely found, nor basely sought,
They made an Exile—not a slave of me.

s This lady, whose name was Gemma, sprung from one of the most powerful Guelph families, named Donati. Corso Donati was the principal adversary of the Ghibellines. She is described as being "Admodum morosa, ut de Xantippe Socratis philosophi conjuge scriptum esse legimus," according to Giannozzo Manetti. But Lionardo Aretino is scandalised 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 agli studj; e non si ricorda che Socrate, il più nobile filosofo che mai fosse, ebbe moglie e figliuoli e uffici della Repubblica nella sua Città; e Aristotele che, &c., &c., ebbe due mogli in varj tempi, ed ebbe figliuoli, e ricchezze assai.—E Marco Tullio-e Catone-e Varronee Seneca-ebbero moglie," &c. &c. It is odd that honest Lionardo's examples, with the exception of Seneca, and, for anything I know, of Aristotle, are not the most felicitous. Tully's Terentia, and Socrates' Xantippe, by no means contributed to their husbands' happiness, 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 è animale civile, secondo piace a tutti i filosofi." And thence concludes that the greatest proof of the animal's civism is "la prima congiunzione, dalla quale multiplicata nasce la Città."

CANTO THE SECOND.

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

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

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
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,
My soul within thy language, which once set

With our old Roman sway in the wide West;
But I will make another tongue arise

As lofty and more sweet, in which express'd
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 realise 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

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 their station,
The unborn earthquake yet is in the womb,

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?

Thou, Italy; whose ever golden fields,

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
Iler 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

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,

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: