And the beams of morn lie dead On the towers of Venice now, Like its glory long ago.
By the skirts of that gray cloud Many-domed Padua proud Stands, a peopled solitude, 'Mid the harvest-shining plain, Where the peasant heaps his grain In the garner of his foe, And the milk-white oxen slow With the purple vintage strain, Heaped upon the creaking wain, That the brutal Celt may swill Drunken sleep with savage will; And the sickle to the sword Lies unchanged, though many a lord, Like a weed whose shade is poison, Overgrows this region's foison, Sheaves of whom are ripe to come To destruction's harvest home : Men must reap the things they sow, Force from force must ever flow, Or worse; but 'tis a bitter woe That love or reason cannot change The despot's rage, the slave's revenge.
Padua, thou within whose walls Those mute guests at festivals, Son and Mother, Death and Sin, Played at dice for Ezzelin,
Till Death cried, "I win, I win!" And Sin cursed to lose the wager, But Death promised, to assuage her, That he would petition for Her to be made Vice-Emperor, When the destined years were o'er, Over all between the Po And the eastern Alpine snow, Under the mighty Austrian. Sin smiled so as Sin only can, And since that time, ay, long before, Both have ruled from shore to shore, That incestuous pair, who follow Tyrants as the sun the swallow, As Repentance follows Crime, And as changes follow Time.
In thine halls the lamp of learning, Padua, now no more is burning;
Like a meteor, whose wild way Is lost over the grave of day, It gleams betrayed and to betray : Once remotest nations came To adore that sacred flame, When it lit not many a hearth On this cold and gloomy earth: Now new fires from antique light Spring beneath the wide world's might; But their spark lies dead in thee, Trampled out by tyranny. As the Norway woodman quells, In the depth of piny dells, One light flame among the brakes, While the boundless forest shakes, And its mighty trunks are torn By the fire thus lowly born: The spark beneath his feet is dead, He starts to see the flames it fed Howling through the darkened sky With a myriad tongues victoriously, And sinks down in fear: so thou, O Tyranny, beholdest now Light around thee, and thou hearest The loud flames ascend, and fearest : Grovel on the earth; ay, hide In the dust thy purple pride!
Noon descends around me now : 'Tis the noon of autumn's glow, When a soft and purple mist Like a vaporous amethyst, Or an air-dissolved star Mingling light and fragrance, far From the curved horizon's bound To the point of heaven's profound, Fills the overflowing sky; And the plains that silent lie Underneath, the leaves unsodden Where the infant frost has trodden With his morning-winged feet, Whose bright print is gleaming yet; And the red and golden vines, Piercing with their trellised lines The rough, dark-skirted wilderness; The dun and bladed grass no less, Pointing from this hoary tower In the windless air; the flower Glimmering at my feet; the line
Of the olive-sandalled Apennine In the south dimly islanded; And the Alps, whose snows are spread High between the clouds and sun; And of living things each one; And my spirit which so long Darkened this swift stream of song, Interpenetrated lie
By the glory of the sky : Be it love, light, harmony, Odour, or the soul of all
Which from heaven like dew doth fall, Or the mind which feeds this verse Peopling the lone universe. Noon descends, and after noon Autumn's evening meets me soon, Leading the infantine moon, And that one star, which to her Almost seems to minister Half the crimson light she brings From the sunset's radiant springs : And the soft dreams of the morn (Which like wingèd winds had borne To that silent isle, which lies 'Mid remembered agonies, The frail bark of this lone being) Pass, to other sufferers fleeing, And its ancient pilot, Pain, Sits beside the helm again.
Other flowering isles must be In the sea of life and agony : Other spirits float and flee O'er that gulph: even now, perhaps, On some rock the wild wave wraps, With folded wings they waiting sit For my bark, to pilot it
To some calm and blooming cove, Where for me, and those I love, May a windless bower be built, Far from passion, pain, and guilt, In a dell 'mid lawny hills, Which the wild sea-murmur fills, And soft sunshine, and the sound Of old forests echoing round, And the light and smell divine
Of all flowers that breathe and shine: We may live so happy there, That the spirits of the air,
Envying us, may even entice To our healing paradise The polluting multitude; But their rage would be subdued By that clime divine and calm, And the winds whose wings rain balmi On the uplifted soul, and leaves Under which the bright sea heaves; While each breathless interval In their whisperings musical The inspired soul supplies With its own deep melodies, And the love which heals all strife Circling, like the breath of life, All things in that sweet abode With its own mild brotherhood: They, not it would change; and soon Every sprite beneath the moon Would repent its envy vain, And the earth grow young again.
Pigna. How are the Duke and Duchess occupied ?
Albano. Buried in some strange talk. The Duke was leaning,
His finger on his brow, his lips unclosed. The Princess sate within the windowseat,
And so her face was hid; but on her knee
Her hands were clasped, veined, and pale as snow,
And quivering-young Tasso, too, was there.
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!
I LOVED-alas! our life is love; But when we cease to breathe and move I do suppose love ceases too. I thought, but not as now I do, Keen thoughts and bright of linked lore, Of all that men had thought before, And all that nature shows, and more.
And still I love and still I think, But strangely, for my heart can drink The dregs of such despair, and live, And love;
And if I think, my thoughts come fast, I mix the present with the past, And each seems uglier than the last.
Sometimes I see before me flee A silver spirit's form, like thee,
Because they once were sweet, shall lull What but mockery can they mean,
Yet now despair itself is mild,
Even as the winds and waters are; I could lie down like a tired child, And weep away the life of care Which I have borne and yet must bear,
Till death like sleep might steal on
And I might feel in the warm air My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.
Some might lament that I were cold, As I, when this sweet day is gone, Which my lost heart, too soon grown old,
Insults with this untimely moan;
They might lament-for I am one Whom men love not,—and yet regret, Unlike this day, which, when the
Shall on its stainless glory set,
And every bird lulled on its mossy bough, And every silver moth fresh from the grave,
Which is its cradle-ever from below Aspiring like one who loves too fair, too far,
Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in To be consumed within the purest glow
THE WOODMAN AND THE NIGHTINGALE
A WOODMAN whose rough heart was out of tune
(I think such hearts yet never came to good)
Hated to hear, under the stars or moon,
One nightingale in an interfluous wood Satiate the hungry dark with melody;- And as a vale is watered by a flood, Or as the moonlight fills the open sky Struggling with darkness-as a tuberose Peoples some. Indian dell with scents which lie
Of one serene and unapproached star, As if it were a lamp of earthly light, Unconscious, as some human lovers are, Itself how low, how high beyond all height
The heaven where it would perish!— and every form
That worshipped in the temple of the night
Was awed into delight, and by the charm Girt as with an interminable zone, Whilst that sweet bird, whose music
Of sound, shook forth the dull oblivion Out of their dreams; harmony became love
Like clouds above the flower from which In every soul but one.
The singing of that happy nightingale
In this sweet forest, from the golden And so this man returned with axe and
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