Was I not softly hushed,

here fondly reared ?

Ah! is not this my country, so endeared
By every filial tie,

In whose lap shrouded both my parents lie?
O, by this tender thought

Your torpid bosoms to compassion wrought,

Look on the people's grief,

Who, after God, of you expect relief!

And if ye but relent,

Virtue shall rouse her in embattled might,
Against blind fury bent,

Nor long shall doubtful hang the unequal fight;
the ancient flame

For no,

Is not extinguished yet, that raised the Italian name !

Mark, sovereign lords, how Time, with pinion strong, Swift hurries life along!

E'en now, behold, Death presses on the rear!

We sojourn here a day,

The soul, disrobed, alone,

the next, are gone!

Must shuddering seek the doubtful pass we fear.
O, at the dreaded bourn

Abase the lofty brow of wrath and scorn !

(Storms adverse to the eternal calm on high!)

And ye, whose cruelty

Has sought another's harm, by fairer deed

Of heart or hand or intellect, aspire

To win the honest meed

Of just renown, the noble mind's desire!

Thus sweet on earth the stay!

Thus to the spirit pure unbarred is heaven's way!

My song, with courtesy, and numbers sooth,
Thy daring reasons grace!

For thou the mighty, in their pride of place,

Must woo to gentle ruth,

Whose haughty will long evil customs nurse,
Ever to truth averse!

Thee better fortunes wait,

Among the virtuous few, the truly great!

Tell them, But who shall bid my terrors cease?

Peace! Peace! on thee I call! return, O heaven-born

Peace!

Francesco Petrarca. Tr. Lady Dacre.

TO ITALY.

AIR land, once loved of Heaven o'er all beside,

FAIR

Which blue waves gird and lofty mountains screen!
Thou clime of fertile fields and sky serene,
Whose gay expanse the Apennines divide!
What boots it now, that Rome's old warlike pride
Left thee of humbled earth and sea the queen?
Nations, that served thee then, now fierce convene
To tear thy locks and strew them o'er the tide.
And lives there son of thine so base at core,
Who, luring foreign friends to thine embrace,
Stabs to the heart thy beauteous, bleeding frame?
Are these the noble deeds of ancient fame?

Thus do ye God's almighty name adore?
O hardened age! O false and recreant race!

TO ITALY.

THANKS be to God, my feet are now addressed,

THAN

Proud Italy, at least to visit thee,

After six weary years, since destiny

Forbids me in thy dear-loved lap to rest.

With weeping eyes, with look and heart depressed,
Upon my natal soil I bend the knee,

While hope and joy my troubled spirit flee,
And anguish, rage, and terror fill my breast.
I turn me, then, the snowy Alps to tread,

And seek the Gaul, more kindly prompt to greet
The child of other lands, than thou art thine:
Here, in these shady vales, mine old retreat,
I lay, in solitude, mine aching head,

Since Heaven decrees, and thou dost so incline.

FROM

TO ITALY.

ROM ignominious sleep, where age on age
Thy torpid faculties have slumbering lain,
Mine Italy, enslaved, ay, more, insane,

Wake, and behold thy wounds with noble rage!
Rouse, and with generous energy engage
Once more thy long-lost freedom to obtain;
The path of honor yet once more regain,
And leave no blot upon my country's page!
Thy haughty lords, who trample o'er thee now,

Have worn the yoke which bows to earth thy neck,
And graced thy triumphs in thy days of fame.
Alas! thine own most deadly foe art thou,
Unhappy land! thy spoils the invader deck,
While self-wrought chains thine infamy proclaim!
Giovanni Guidiccioni. Tr. Anon.

ITALY!

TO ITALY.

TALY! Italy! thou who 'rt doomed to wear
The fatal gift of beauty, and possess

The dower funest of infinite wretchedness
Written upon thy forehead by despair;

Ah! would that thou wert stronger, or less fair,
That they might fear thee more, or love thee less,
Who in the splendor of thy loveliness

Seem wasting, yet to mortal combat dare!
Then from the Alps I should not see descending
Such torrents of armed men, nor Gallic horde
Drinking the wave of Po, distained with gore,
Nor should I see thee girded with a sword
Not thine, and with the stranger's arm contending,
Victor or vanquished, slave forevermore.

Vincenzo da Filicaja. Tr. H. W. Longfellow:

0

TO ITALY.

LAND of beauty, garlanded with pine

And luscious grape-vines, 'neath whose vaulted skies

Of blue eternal, marble mansions rise,

And roseate flowers from every lattice shine!

Still have the nations striven from of yore
For thy fair fields, lovely as Eden's plain;
Thy temples, and thy cities by the main
Throned hoar and gray upon the rocky shore.
Who hath seen thee, O, never in his breast
The heart grows wholly old! Some youthful zest
Of life still lingers; some bright memory!
And when the nightingales in autumn chill
Fly forth, a yearning stirs his spirit still
To fly with them toward sunny Italy!

Anonymous.

То

SEA-COAST OF ITALY.

O instigate Taranto's prince, to arm His valiant people for the mighty shock, And save his brother from impending harm, Imprisoned by the foe, disastrous stroke! Forth sailed the vessel, breathing round a charm, And keeping well at sea from sand or rock; The goddess sat, in gold and azure veiled, Upon the poop, from man and heaven concealed.

Capraia and Gorgona having past,

She turns towards the left the glittering prow; Leghorn, then Elba, famous for its vast

Ferruginous mines; and low Faleria now, And Piombino are behind her cast;

Countries which still to Ocean's monarch bow; Where still the eagle, with triumphant wings, O'er mountain, plain, and sea his shadow flings.

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