Պանդխտութիւն Հարոլդայ ասպետի

ITALY 

Italia! too, Italia ! looking on thee,
Full flashes on the soul the light of ages,
Since the fierce Carthaginjan almost won thee,
To the last halo of the chiefs and sages
Who glorify thy consacrated pages;
Thou wert the throne and grave of empires; still,
The fount at which the panting mind assuages
Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill,
Flows from the eternal source of Rome's imperial hill. 

I

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs ;
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and dying Glory smiles
O'er the far times, when many a subject land 
Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles! 

II 

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,
Rising with her tiara of proud towers
At airy distance, with majestic motion,
A ruler of the waters and their powers:
And such she was; - her daughters had their dowers
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East 
Pourd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers. 
In purple was she robed, and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity increased. 

III 

In Venice T'asso's echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier;
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And music meets not always now the ear:
Those days are gone – but Beauty still is here.
States fall, arts fade - but Nature doth not die,
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear, 
The pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy! 

IV 

But unto us she hath a spell beyond
Her name in story, and her long array
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond
Above the dogeless city's van ish'd sway;
Ours is a trophy which will not decay
With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor,
And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away 
The keystones of the arch! though all were o'er,
For us repeopled were the solitary shore. 

V

The beings of the mind are not of clay;
Essentially immortal, they create
And multiply in us a brighter ray
And more beloved existence: rhat which Fate
Prohibits to dull life, in this our state
Of mortal bondage, by these spirits supplied,
First exiles, then replaces what we hate; 
Watering the heart whose early flowers have died,
And with a fresher growth replenishing the void. 

VI 

Such is the refuge of our youth and age,
The first from Hope, the last from Vacancy;
And this worn feeling peoples many a page, .
And, may be, that which grows beneath mine eye: 
Yet there are things whose strong reality
Outshines our fairy-land; in shape and hues
More beautiful than our fantastic sky, 
And the strange constellations which the Muse
O'er her wild universe is skilful to diffuse: 

VII 

I saw or dream'd of such, – but let them go, -
They came like truth, and disappear 'd like dreams;
And whatsoe 'er they were are now but so:
I could replace them if I would; still teems
My mind with many a form which aptly seems 
Such as I sought for, and at moments found;
Let these too go - for waking Reason deems 
Such over-weening phantasies unsound,
And other voices speak, and other sights surround. 

VIII 

I've taught me other tongues - and in strange eyes
Have made me not a stranger; to the mind
Which is itself, no changes bring surprise;
Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find 
A country with — ay, or without mankind;
Yet was I born where men are proud to be, -
Not without cause; and should I leave behind 
The inviolate island of the sage and free,
And seek me out a home by a remoter sea. 

IX 

Perhaps I loved it well; and should I lay
My ashes in a soil which is not mine,
Ny spirit shall resume it - if we may
Unbodied choose a sanctuary. I twine
My hopes of being remember'd in my line
With my land's language: if too fond and far
These aspirations in their scope incline, 
If my fame should be, as my fortunes are,
Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar. 

X 

My name from out the temple where the dead
Are honour'd by the nations - let it be -
And light the laurels on a loftier head!
And be the Spartan's epitaph on me-
«Sparta hath many a worthier son than he».
Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need ; 
The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree 
I planted : they have torn me, and I bleed:
I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed. 

XI 

The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord;
And, annual marriage now no more renewid,
The Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored,
Neglected garment of her widowhood! 
St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood,
Stand, but in mockery of his wither'd power,
Over the proud Place where an Emperor sued, 
And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour
When Venice was a queen with an unequall'd dower. 

XII 

The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns -
An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt;
Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains
Clauk over sceptred cities; nations melt
From power's high pinnacle, when they have felt
The sunshine for a while, and downward go
Like lauwine loosen'd from the mountain's belt; 
Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo !
Th'octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe. 

XIII 

Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass,
Their gilded collars glittering in the sun;
But is not Doria's menace come to pass ?
Are they not bridled? - Venice, lost and won,
Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done,
Sinks, like a seaweed, into whence she rose!
Better be whelm'd beneath the waves, and shon, 
Even in destruction's depth, her foreign foes,
From whom submission wrings an infamous repose. 

XIV 

In youth she was all glory, - a new Tyre;
Her very by-word sprung from victory,
The « Planter of the Lion », which through fire
And blood she bore o’er subject earth and sea;
Though making many slaves, herself still free,
And Europe's bulwark'gainst the Ottomite;
Witness Troy's rival, Candia! Vouch it, ye 
Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's fight!
For ye are names no time nor tyranny can blight. 

XV 

Statues of glass — all shiver'd - the long file
Of her dead Doges are declined to dust;
But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile
Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust;
Their sceptre broken, and their: sword in rust,
Have yielded to the stranger: empty halls,
Thin streets, and foreign aspects such as must 
Too oft remind her who and what inthrals,
Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice 'lovely walls. 

XVI 

When Athen's armies fell at Syracuse,
And fetter'd thousands bore the yoke of war,
Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse,
Her voice their only ransom from afar:
See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car
Of the o'ermaster's victor stops, the reins
Fall from his hands - his idle scimitar 
Starts from its belt - he rends his captive's chains,
And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains. 

XVII 

Thus, Venice, if no stronger claim were thine,
Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot,
Thy choral memory of the Bard divine,
Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot
Which ties thee to thy tyrants; and thy lot
Is shameful to the nations, — most of all,
Albion! to thee: the Ocean queen should not 
Abandon Ocean's children; in the fall
Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall. 

XVIII 

I loved her from my boyhood; she to me
Was as a fairy city of the heart,
Rising like water-columns from the sea,
Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart;
And Otway, Radeliffe, Schiller, Shakspeare's art,
Had stamp'd her image in me, and even so,
Although I found her thus, we did not part; 
Perchance even dearer in her day of woe,
Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show. 

XIX 

I can repeople with the past — and of
The present there is still for eye and thought,
And meditation chasten 'd down, enough;
And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought;
And of the happiest moments which were wrought
Within the web of my existence, some
From thee, fair Venice! have their colours caught: 
There are some feelings Time cannot benumb,
Nor Torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb. 

XX 

But from their nature will the tannen grow
Loftiest on loftiest and least shelter'd rocks,
Rooted in barrenness, where Dought below
Of soil supports them 'gainst the Alpine shocks
Of eddying storms; yet springs the trunk, and mocks
The howling tempest, till its height and frame
Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks 
Of bleak, gray granite into life it came,
And grew a giant tree; - the mind may grow the same. 

XXI 

Existence may be borne, and the deep root
Of life and sufferance make its firm abode 
The bare and desolated bosoms: mute
The camel labours with the heaviest load,
And the wolf dies in silence, — not bestow'd
In vain should such example be; if they,
Things of ignoble or of savage mood, 
Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay
May temper it to bear, - it is but for a day. 

XXII 

All suffering doth destroy, or is destroy'd,
Even by the sufferer; and, in each event, Ends: -
Some, with hope replenish'd and rebuoy ’d,
Return to whence they came with like intent,
And weave their web again; some, bow'd and bent,
Wax gray and ghastly, withering ere their time,
And perish with the reed on which they leant;
Some seek devotion, toil, war, good or crime,
According as their souls were form'd to sink or climb. 

XXIII 

But ever and anon of griefs subdued
There comes a token like a scorpion's sting,
Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued;
And slight withal may be the things which bring
Back on the heart the weight which it would fling
Aside for ever: it may be a sound -
A tone of music - summer's eve - or spring - 
A flower - the wind - the ocean - which shall wound,
Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound; 

XXIV 

And how and why we know not, nor can trace
Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind,
But feel the shock renew'd, nor can efface
The blight and blackening which it leaves behind,
Which out of things familiar, undesign'd,
When least we deem of such, calls up to view
The spectres whom no exorcism can bind, - 
The cold, the changed, perchance the dead - anew,
The mourn'd, the loved, the lost — too many! - yet how few! 

XXV 

But my soul wanders; I demand it back
To meditate amongst decay, and stand
A ruin amidst ruins; there to track
Fall'n states and buried greatness, o'er a land
Which was the mightiest in its old command,
And is the loveliest, and must ever be
The master-mould of Nature's heavenly hand ;
Wharein were cast the heroic and the free,
The beautiful, the brave, the lords of earth and sea, 

XXVI 

The commonwealth of kings, the men of Rome!
And even since, and now, fair Italy!
Thou art the garden of the world, the home
Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree;
Even in thy desert, what is like to thee?
Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste
More rich than other climes' fertility; 
Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced
With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced. 

XXVII 

The moon is up, and yet it is not night;
Sunset divides the sky with her; a sea
Of glory streams along the Alpine height
Of blue Friuli's mountains; Heaven is free
From clouds, but of all colours seems to be, -
Melted to one vast Iris of the West,
Where the Day joins the past Eternity; 
While, on the other hand, meek Dian 's crest
Floats through the azure air - an island of the blest! 

XXVIII 

A single star is at her side, and reigns
With her o'er half the lovely heaven; but still
Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains
Rollid o'er the peak of the far Rhætian hill,
As Day and Night contending were, until
Nature reclaim'd her order: - gently flows
The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil 
The odorous purple of a new-born rose,
Which streams upon her stream, and glass'd within it glows, 

XXIX 

Fill'd with the face of heaven, which, from afar,
Comes down upon the waters; all its hues,
From the rich sunset to the rising star,
Their magical variety difuse:
And now they change; a paler shadow strews
Its mantle o' er the mountains; parting day
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues
With a new colour as it gasps away,
The last still loveliest, - till – 't is gone- and all is gray. 

XXX 

There is a tomb in Arqua; - rear'd in air,
Pillar'd in their sarcophagus, repose
The bones of Laura's lover: here repair
Many familiar with his well-sung woes, 
The pilgrims of his genius. He arose
To raise a language, and his land reclaim
From the dull yoke of her barbaric foes: 
Watering the tree which bears his lady's name
With his melodious tears, he gave himself to fame. 

XXXI 

They keep his dust in Arqua, where he died;
The mountain-village where his latter days
Went down the vale of years; and'tis their pride -
An honest pride and let it be their praise,
To offer to the passing stranger 's gaze
His mansion and his sepulchre; both plain
And venerably simple, such as raise 
A feeling more accordant with his strain
Than if a pyramid form'd his monumental fane. 

XXXII 

And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt
Is one of hat complexion which seems made
For those who their mortality have felt,
And sought a refuge from their hopes decay'd
In the deep umbrage of a green hill's shade,
Which shows a distant prospect far away
Of busy cities, now in vain display'd, 
For they can lure no further; and the ray
Of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday, 

XXXIII 

Developing the mountains, leaves, and flowers,
And shining in the brawling brock, where-by,
Clear as its current, glide the sauntering hours
With a calm languor, which, though to the eye
Idlesse it seem, hath its morality.
If from society we learn to live, 
Tis solitude should teach us how to die; 
If hath no flatterers; vanity can give
No hollow aid; alone - man with his God must strive: 

XXXIV 

Or, it may be, with demons, who impair 
The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey
In melancholy bosoms, such as were
Of moody texture from their earliest day,
And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay,
Deeming themselves predestined to a doom
Which is not of the pangs that pass away;
Making the sun like blood, the earth a tomb,
The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom. 

XXXV 

Ferrara ! in thy wide and grass-grown streets,
Whose symmetry was not for solitude,
There seems as 'twere a curse upon the seats
Of former sovereigns, and the antique brood
Of Este, which for many an age made good
Its strength within thy walls, and was of yore
Patron or tyrant, as the changing mood 
Of petty power impell’d, of those who wore
The wreath which Dante's brow alone had worn before. 

XXXVI 

And Tasso is their glory and their shame.
Hark to his strain! and then survey his cell!
And see how dearly earn'd Torquato's fame,
And where Alfonso bade his poet dwell:
The miserable despot could not quell
The insulted mind he sought to quench, and blend
With the surrounding maniacs, in the hell 
Where he had plunged it. Glory withoud end
Scatter'd the clouds away; and on that name attend 

XXXVII 

The tears and praises of all time; while thine
Would rot in its oblivion - in the sink
Of worthless dust, which from thy boasted line
Is shaken into nothing - but the link
Thou formest in his fortunes bids us think
Of thy poor malice, naming thee with scorn:
Alfonso! how thy ducal pageants shrink 
From thee! if in another station born,
Scarce fit to be the slave of him thou madest to mourn: 

XXXVIII 

Thou! form 'd to eat, and be despised, and die,
Even as the beasts that perish, save that thou
Hadst a more splendid trough and wider sty:
He! with a glory round his furrow'd brow,
Which emanated then, and dazzles now,
In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire,
And Boileau, whose rash envy could allow
No strain which shamed bis country's creaking lyre,
That whetstone of the teeth - monotony in wire! 

XXXIX 

Peace to Torquato's injured shade!'t was his
In life and death to be the mark where
Wrong Aim'd with her poison'd arrows — but to miss.
Oh, victor unsurpass' d in modern song!
Each year brings forth its millions; but how long
The tide of generations shall roll on,
And not the whole combined and countless throng 
Compose a mind like thine? though all in one
Condensed their scatter'd rays, they would not form a sun. 

XL 

Great as thou art, yet parallel'd by those, 
Thy countrymen, before thee born to shine,
The Bards of Hell and Chivalry: first rose
The Tuscan father's comedy divine;
Then, not unequal to the Florentine,
The southern Scott, the minstrell who call 'd forth
A new creation with his magic line, 
And, like the Ariosto of the North,
Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightly worth. 

XLI 

The lightning rent from Ariosto 's bust
The iron crown of laurel's mimick'd leaves ;
Nor was the ominous element unjust,
For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves
Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves,
And the false semblance but disgraced his brow;
Yet still, if fondly Superstition grieves, 
Know, that the lightning sanctifies below
Whate 'er it strikes; - yon head is doubly sacred now. 

XLII 

Italia! oh Italia! thou who hast
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,
And annals graved in characters of flame.
Oh, God! that thou wert in thy nakedness
Less lovely or more powerful, and couldst claim 
Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press
To shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy distress; 

XLIII 

Then might 'st thou more appal; or, less desired,
Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored
For thy destructive charms; then, still untired,
Would not be seen the armed torrents pour'd
Down the deep Alps ; nor would the hostile horde
Of many-nation'd spoilers from the Po
Quaff blood and water; nor the stranger's sword
Be thy sad weapon of. defence, and so,
Victor or vanquish'd, thou the slave of friend or foe. 

XLIV 

Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him,
The Roman friend of Rome's least-mortal mind,
The friend of Tully: as my bark did skim
The bright blue waters with a fanning wind,
Came Megara before me, and behind
Ægina lay, Piræus on the right,
And Corinth on the left; I lay reclined 
Along the prow, and saw all these unite
ln ruin, even as he had seen the desolate sight; 

XLV 

For Time hath not rebuilt them, but uprear'd
Barbaric dwellings on their shatter'd site,
Which only make more mourn'd and more endear 'd 
The few last rays of their far-scatter'd light,
And the crush'd relics of their vanish'd might..
The Roman saw these tombs in his own age,
These sepulchres of cities, which excite
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 1 in desolation : all that was
Of then destruction is; and now, alas !
Rome - Rome imperial, bows her to the storm,
In the same dust and blackness, and we pass 
The skeleton of her Titanic form,
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;
Mother of Arts! as once of arms; thy hand
Was then our guardian, and is still our guide;
Parent of our Religion ! whom the wide
Nations have knelt to for the keys of heaven!
Europe, repentant of her parricide, 
Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven,
Roll the barbarian tide, and sue to be forgiven. 

XLVIII 

But Arno wins us to the fair white walls,
Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps
A softer feeling for her fairy halls.
Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps
Her corn, and wine, and oil, and Plenty leaps
To laughing life, with her redundant horn.
Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps 
Was modern Luxury of Commerce born,
And buried Learning rose, redeem 'd to a new morn. 

XLIX 

There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills
The air around with beauty; we inhale
The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils
Part of its 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; 
And to the fond idolaters of old
Envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould: 

L

We gaze and turn away, and know not where,
Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart
Reels with its fulness; there - for ever there -
Chain’d to the chariot of triumphal Art,
We stand as captives, and would not depart.
Away! — there need no words, nor terms precise,
The paltry jargon of the marble mart, 
Where Pedantry gulls Folly — we have eyes:
Blood, pulse, and breast confirm the Dardan Shepherd's prize.