The foul isle swarms with men who fly the sun : Self-called the Grecian name of Monks they own, Who choose to live unwitnessed and alone. Rutilius. Tr. C. A. Elton. ITALY. A LAS! poor Italy, the home of woe, Ship without pilot in an ocean wild, No gentle lady, but a harlot thou! So eager was that courteous spirit mild, Only for the sweet sound of his own land, To welcome joyfully his country's child: And now in thee, not without warfare stand Those who are yet alive; and each gnaws each, Of those whom but one wall and ditch defend. Seek, wretched one, around thy circling beach; Then turn thine eyes, within thy bosom gaze, And see if anywhere sweet peace doth reach. What boots it that on thee Justinian lays If thou wouldst understand what God hath willed, While thou to ride this steed thy limbs shouldst stir, On thee and on thy race may righteous doom Thou and thy father were in such hot haste Come, cruel, come, and thou shalt see how sore Come and behold thy Rome, who now doth mourn, And (be it said with reverence) God of love, Or does there in thy counsels' depths abide For the whole land of Italy doth groan Beneath the sway of tyrants; peasants swell CANZONE. MY own Italy! though words are vain The mortal wounds to close, Unnumbered, that thy beauteous bosom stain, To sigh forth Tiber's woes, And Arno's wrongs, as on Po's saddened shore To dwell a lowly sojourner on earth, Turn, Lord, on this thy chosen land thine eye! From what light cause this cruel war has birth! Thou, Father, from on high, Touch by my humble voice, that stubborn wrath may yield! Ye, to whose sovereign hands the Fates confide This land, for which no pity wrings your breast, — Hope ye, with blood from the barbarians' veins ? Ye see not, though to pierce so deep ye boast, When thronged your standards most, O'erwhelms our every native lovely plain! Have thus our weal betrayed, who shall our cause sustain ? Well did kind Nature, guardian of our state, A lofty rampart against German hate; But blind Ambition, seeking his own ill, To the pure gales contagion foul invites: The gentle flocks and wolves relentless throng, Are of the lawless hordes no tie can hold : Erewhile their bosoms gored, Nor has Time's hand aught blurred the record proud! When they who, thirsting, stooped to quaff the flood, With the cool waters mixed, drank of a comrade's blood! Great Cæsar's name I pass, who o'er our plains Drawn by our own good swords from out their veins ; Heaven holds this land in hate! To you the thanks, whose hands control her helm! Of all the beauteous earth the fairest realm! From broken fortunes and from humble toil Dealers in blood, bartering their souls for hire? Nor hatred nor disdain my earnest lay inspire. Nor mark ye yet, confirmed by proof on proof, Who strikes in mockery, keeping death aloof; Your inmost bosom's gore? Yet give one hour to thought, And ye shall own how little he can hold Another's glory dear, who sets his own at naught. O Latin blood of old, Arise, and wrest from obloquy thy fame, Nor bow before a name Of hollow sound, whose power no laws enforce ! Have higher minds subdued, Ours, ours the crime! - not such wise Nature's course. Ah! is not this the soil my foot first pressed? |