MADDALO Thou seest on whom from thine own worshipped heaven Thou drawest down smiles - they did not rain on thee. MALPIGLIO Would they were parching lightnings for his sake On whom they fell! SONG I I loved-alas! our life is love; I thought, but not as now I do, Keen thoughts and bright of linkèd lore, II And still I love and still I think, But strangely, for my heart can drink And if I think, my thoughts come fast, Song. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824. III Sometimes I see before me flee still watching it, Till by the grated casement's ledge MARENGHI I LET those who pine in pride or in revenge, II A massy tower yet overhangs the town, III Another scene ere wise Etruria knew Its second ruin through internal strife, And tyrants through the breach of discord threw The chain which binds and kills. As death to life, Marenghi, Rossetti || Mazenghi, Mrs. Shelley, 1824. Published, vii.-xv., by Mrs. Shelley, 1824, i.-xxviii., by Rossetti, 1870. Composed, 1818. As winter to fair flowers (though some be poison) So Monarchy succeeds to Freedom's foison. IV In Pisa's church a cup of sculptured gold Was brimming with the blood of feuds forsworn At sacrament; more holy ne'er of old Etrurians mingled with the shades forlorn Of moon-illumined forests. And reconciling factions wet their lips With that dread wine, and swear to keep each spirit Undarkened by their country's last eclipse. VI Was Florence the liberticide? that band A nation amid slaveries, disenchanted Of many impious faiths-wise, just do they, Does Florence, gorge the sated tyrants' prey? VII O foster-nurse of man's abandoned glory, Since Athens, its great mother, sunk in splendor; Thou shadowest forth that mighty shape in story, As ocean its wrecked fanes, severe yet tender. The light-invested angel Poesy Was drawn from the dim world to welcome thee. VIII And thou in painting didst transcribe all taught By loftiest meditations; marble knew The sculptor's fearless soul, and as he wrought, The grace of his own power and freedom grew. And more than all, heroic, just, sublime, Thou wert among the false IX was this thy crime? Yes; and on Pisa's marble walls the twine A beast of subtler venom now doth make X The sweetest flowers are ever frail and rare, And love and freedom blossom but to wither; And good and ill like vines entangled are, So that their grapes may oft be plucked together. Divide the vintage ere thou drink, then make ΧΙ No record of his crime remains in story, Pursued into forgetfulness, which won XII For when by sound of trumpet was declared So much of water with him as might wet XIII Amid the mountains, like a hunted beast, He hid himself, and hunger, toil, and cold, Month after month endured; it was a feast Whene'er he found those globes of deep-red gold Which in the woods the strawberry-tree doth bear, Suspended in their emerald atmosphere. XIV And in the roofless huts of vast morasses, All overgrown with reeds and long rank grasses, XV He housed himself. There is a point of strand Through muddy weeds, the shallow sullen sea. |