EARTH. The nook in which the captive, overtoiled, As if the armed multitudes of dead Stirred in their heavy slumber. Mournful tones To hide beneath its waves. The glens, the groves, And banks and depths of lake, and streets and lanes Here, where I rest, the vales of Italy From all her ways and walls, and streets and streams, And folly. Even the common dust, among 57 The springing corn and vine-rows, witnesses A murmur of confused languages, The utterance of nations now no more, Driven out by mightier, as the days of heaven The blood TO THE APENNINES. YOUR peaks are beautiful, ye Apennines! In There, rooted to the aerial shelves that wear The glory of a brighter world, might spring Sweet flowers of heaven to scent the unbreathed air, And heaven's fleet messengers might rest the wing, To view the fair earth in its summer sleep, Silent, and cradled by the glimmering deep. Below you lie men's sepulchres, the old Etrurian tombs, the graves of yesterday; The herd's white bones lie mixed with human mouldYet up the radiant steeps that I survey Death never climbed, nor life's soft breath, with pain, Was yielded to the elements again. Ages of war have filled these plains with fear; Of spears, and yell of meeting armies here, 60 TO THE APENNINES. From clouds, that rising with the thunder's sound, Ah me! what armed nations-Asian horde, And Lybian host-the Scythian and the Gaul, Of tyrant winds against your rocky side How crashed the towers before beleaguering foes, Sacked cities smoked and realms were rent in twain ; And commonwealths against their rivals rose, Trode out their lives and earned the curse of Cain! While in the noiseless air and light that flowed Round your far brows, eternal Peace abode. Here pealed the impious hymn, and altar flames While, as the unheeding ages passed along, Ye, from your station in the middle skies, Proclaimed the essential Goodness, strong and wise. In you the heart that sighs for freedom seeks Her image; there the winds no barrier know, And Thought, her winged offspring, chained by power, THE KNIGHT'S EPITAPH. THIS is the church which Pisa, great and free, Reared to St. Catharine. How the time-stained walls, That earthquakes shook not from their poise, appear To shiver in the deep and voluble tones Rolled from the organ! Underneath my feet There lies the lid of a sepulchral vault. The image of an armed knight is graven Upon it, clad in perfect panoply Cuishes, and greaves, and cuirass, with barred helm, Gauntleted hand, and sword, and blazoned shield. Around, in Gothic characters, worn dim By feet of worshippers, are traced his name, Of this inscription, eloquently show His history. Let me clothe in fitting words The body's sinews. Brave he was in fight, ナ |