Of her past greatness, and that fertile soil.
Bounteous rewarder of the ploughman's toil.
Italia lovely yet. though great no more,
When shall the mighty spirit, which of yore
Watched o'er thy wondrous destinies, awake
Thy children's dormant energies, and shake
Thy sunny hills with freedom's joyous cry?
When shall ye dare to conquer Liberty,
Degenerate sons of Romulus? Frowns not,
Indignant from yon doubly hallowed spot,
His arm had freed, his blood now sanctifies,
Rienzi's mighty shadow? Do but rise.
But dare to face your tyrants and they fall-
Vain the appeal! The lofty hymn of Gaul
Unheeded thundered by; great Harold's strain
Rose high in Freedom's cause and rose in vain.

I passed where Harold dwelt, and traced his

With outstretched arms; and in thy fairy clime, Though homeward bound, I lingered for a time,

Searching 'mid scattered records of thy fame,
The precious fragments of my idol's frame,
Interrogating marble, parchment, books,
Grim statues in their consecrated nooks,
Relics that once adorned, but shame thee now,
And which, without a blush, thy children show,
As courtesans their charms, for gold to all.
Of these I asked the secret of thy fall;
And from each witness I had thus evoked,
From crumbling battlements with ivy yoked,
From high Soracte's ever sullen brow
That frowned on infant Rome as on us now,
From dust of cities and from secular stone
The same voice rose and answered, "Faith
is gone!"

For, know it, mortals, whether based on error, Or sternest truth, on love, or hope, or terror, Strong Faith, when free from dampening doubt, incites

Your hearts to greatest deeds, and ever writes Your names, with brightest letters, on the page Which history hands down to each wondering

age.

It is the one conceded point. It rests, Unwavering 'mid the conflicts of your breasts The northern star, the never-failing pole, Which draws th' obedient magnet of the soul, The beacon which, though tempests rend the air

Through night's drear darkness shines forever there.

Why howls the distant main? Why swells the tide

With ominous voice? The quickened flashes glide

From cloud to cloud, and make succeeding night

More murky with their fitful glare of light. Hark, 'tis the coming tempest's warning threat; Anon the waves, by adverse winds beset, Writhe as in agony, their huge crests bending In fiercest shapes like things of life contending. Again the winds are hushed in deep repose, Deceitful as the panther's sudden pause Before a deadly leap; and now, with speed Out-running in its course the flame-winged steed

His own fleet lightning rides, he comes, he

comes,

The spirit of the storm! the lashed sea foams, Its surface yielding, as the gale howls past, A tortured calm beneath the stronger blast.

Darker upon the billows' foaming field, What was that shade yon brighter flash revealed?

A petrel, on the liquid mountain's crest
Riding, as if the wave-top were his nest,
The sea his home, his element the gale?
Another flash-it is, it is a sail!

And such a night! Bathed in the lurid glare,
Forbidden spirits revel in the air
Unchecked; and, with their dismal howlings,
make

The deep foundations of the mountains quake.

And yet, fear not, ye anxious ones on shore, Eagerly listening to the tempest's roar; Trust in the mariner's skill: that buoyant bark Will safely reach the sheltered bay; for mark Deep rooted in the solid rock, upright, Yon stone-framed giant sentinels the night; And lifting up his tow'ring head on high Beacons the sailor with his glaring eye.

That sea is Time, on whose storm-furrowed space,

The keels of nations print a fleeting trace;
Those storms, which, sent to renovate by strife
In dormant waves the properties of life,
With wholesome tortures vex the panting
deep,

Are revolutions and fierce wars, that sweep
Betimes on thunder wings athwart the land.
Loosed on the earth by some mysterious hand
To wake the slumbering energies of men.

'Tis then, while mists are gathering on the main,

Spreading their pall of darkness o'er the sky And in one mass confounding to the eye, Earth, heaven and air, the ocean and the shore; When, with loud shrieks, the spirits of Discord

soar

Foul carrion-birds that scent their feast of gore,
And ken afar the shipwreck or the fight-
'Tis then the trembling pilot scans the night-
For the accustomed beacon.-oh! 'tis then
That all instinctively the minds of men
Distracted with discussion-stillborn schemes,
And the word warring forum's sterile dreams,
Turn unto Faith-the Faith of former years,
As if, 'mid so many doubts and fears,
They felt the need of some conceded thing,
Some settled point, not open to the din
And clamor of debate, bui sanctified
And raised above the passions' stormy tide,

Something to trust, to follow-to adore.

Then shame to him who, safe himself on shore, One spark would quench of that celestial flame, To earn the specious infamy of fame,

Or plunder what the spurning waves might throw,

When fulls the storm, upon the beach below,
From the lost vessel that his hand had wrecked.
And shame to you, whom Providence has
decked

With sacerdotal honors, that you may
Over that beacon watch by night and day;
Shame, if you sleep beside your trust, or worse,
If in saint speeches and devout converse,
You waste the needful hour, while fainter
glows

The flame you should protect, an

knows

scarcely

Such flick ring lights your vagrant lanterns

show

The erring bark whither to guide her prow.

Oh. nurse the fire-its dying embers feed,
Lest the apostle of a younger creed
Light a fresh torch and wave it in the air;
And men would gather round its lurid glare,-
For men are moths that singe their reckless
wings,

Nor heed the risk, for love of glittering things.
Consult the solemn testament of Time:
How oft have nations risen up sublime,
And forged their fetters into pointed steel,
And dealt such blows as made the wide world
feel

The self freed slave's indomitable might,
Because a voice had clamor'd in the night;
A mortal's voice, yet stronger than the breath
Of the waked tempest, since it spoke to Faith.

With winter sports the cheerful valleys ring;
But, in the hand of yonder Alpine king,
Rocks the poised avalanche; beware!
A fluttered bird has lost his path in air;
Snow blinded, frighted at the dizzy height,
He sinks upon the mountain'd mass; his weight,
His little weight has urged th' uncertain scale,
And hamlets perish-widow'd mothers wail,
And roofless wretches starve, because a bird
From his own sphere in random flight has
erred.

Thou, crazed apostle of the people's cause,
Dreamy enactor of utopian laws,
Pen toiling sophist of the Hermitage,
By turns the scorn and idol of thy age,
Say, would thy lips have spoken, if thy sight
Had pierced the darkness of the future's night?
But, like the youth who stole the wizard's
spell,

And called up what he knew not how to quell, With loud, clear voice, thou dids't pronounce the Word.

And all the spirits, good and evil, heard―
Heard and believed, for 'twas a dismal day;
When ancient creeds were fading fast away,
When thrones and altars, worn alike and old,
All rotten inwardly, though cased in gold,
Stood mouldering in state; they could not last;
For man, among those phantoms of the past,
With thirst of Faith he longed to gratify,
Had hailed the owl's screech as a prophet cry.

came;

Until one day, a small but daring band,
Inured to peril in the mountain land,
Where they pursued the chamois and the bear,
Men who, perhaps, had never chanced to hear
Of Milan mail and French caparison,
Of golden spurs in Paynim battle won,
Of blazoned shield and knightly power and
pride,

Upon their serried pikes received the tide
Of living steel, that rushed on like the sea-
And fell like billow spray upon the lea;
And then, (as visions of the shadowy night,
That disappear at the first gleam of light,
Or, if the dreamer dare address them, flee,)
Faded away the pageant chivalry.

And there were monarchs porphyrogenite,
Who built their edifice of kingly might,
With toil of slaves, in semblance of a rock.
So well had Faith cemented every block,
Soon as the ivy o'er its face had grown,
Mankind forgot the work was all their own,
But deem'd some angry God had placed it
there;

So bowed their necks in mute and blind des pair.

And now, even now, though sapped its very base,

Though fall'n each battlement that erst did grace

And guard the entrance to the citadel,
Though long since fled the watchful sentinel
That paced the drawbridge in the lonely night,
The venerable pile still looms upright,
Nor falls at once; but, slowly, one by one,
Rolls to the ground each aged, mossy stone.

Thus the hoar giant on the Lybian shore,-
Now heaven's blue arch upon him leans no

more,

But far above his Titan head expands,With sinews braced and bending shoulder stands.

But we, republicans, who broke the spell. Which Kinghood's sombre spirit had wrought so well,

What Genius rivetted the chain that binds Into one mind and will, our wills and minds?

[January,

Long may the glorious fabric still resist
That precious ore's unseen antagonist.
Its gnawing foe through years of sunny years;
But traitorous surmisings, witless fears,
Ill boding saws of many a beldam sphynx,
These, even these, though premature and vain,
And hireling smithery of the soundest links,
With acid tooth corrode the golden chain,

II.

Thou art not for the world; thou must be woo'd, With fast and prayer, in depth of solitude, Where he who seeks thee with a virgin heart, Haply may view thee naked as thou art. But let him worship, silent. at thy fane; For, should the voice of wisdom warn in vain, Should he, in blind devotion to thy charms, Carry thee forth all robeless in his arms, And show thee to mankind, they will despise The mad enthusiast and his dear bought prize. The sage, or bids thee hide, or covers thee With such fair robes and well-wrought dra pery.

As each beholder, through the raiment's folds,
May catch some glimpses of the form it holds,
And for some likeness thou may'st chance to
bear

To the false idols that engross his care.
Or for the splendor of thy vestments bright-
May bow to thee, and, blindly, bow aright.

Yet do we seek thee, or pretend to seek;
But lengthy is the road, and man is weak;
And angels there are many on the way,-
False angels that usurp thy name and sway.
And such is man's deep craving to believe,
That all these semblances in turn deceive,
Enjoy awhile the incense and the laud,
Then leave the altar to some happier fraud.

Behold two pilgrim worshippers of Truth,
Au aged wand'rer and a fiery youth.
Slow, tremulous, with painful, halting gait,
With limbs that shake beneath his body's
weight;

And peering eyes, that feebly strive to scan
The dubious way, proceeds the veteran.
His wrinkled hand a glimmering taper shades,
Whose fitful, flickering ray now dimly fades,
Now lights the gloom within a little span,
Far as can reach the arm of the old man.

Meanwhile the younger palmer boldly on But onward, onward rushes fearlessly. Urges his journey; path he holdeth none; Lo, from the gloom, radiant he re-appears; Toward some far aim that he alone can see. A shapely image in his grasp he bears; But a fair likeness which all eyes may view, No cold abstraction for the thinking few, All hands may feel; the empty pedestal Receives the goddess; thousands prostrate Such is the quick contagion of belief. fall;

But," cries Iconoclast, with honest grief, "Vain is the idol, vain the sacrifice, "That is not Truth."-" Hush, they believe it is."

From lowly cot to lofty towers of kings,
The quick performance shifted on swift wing;
But all the scenes were hung in black or red;
O'er cot and tower a gloomy pall was spread
Each heart of man a prison'd woe reveal'd;
Each blooming field became a battle field,
And smiled no more, but blushed for human
strife.

It was the very tragedy of life,
Where ev'ry play'r had fain resigned his part,
For sheer disgust and weariness of heart,
But Faith, the prompter, bade each persevere,
With whispered promisings of public cheer.

Martyrs I saw of every cause and creed
Rejoice in torture and exulting bleed;
Here the proud Brahmin drove his idol's car
O'er the death pilgrims who had travelled far
Thus to be crushed beneath those holy wheels.
Here the red stoic, whom no learning steels
To silence flesh. but simple, savage faith,
Chaunted his war song with his dying breath.
There the star watcher, by his telescope,
Wasted the sleepless nights in cred'lous hope.
And there the ragged promiser of gold
'Mid lofty visions unfulfilled
grew old.
Many I saw whose lives appear to be
A constant duel with adversity;

But manfully they grappled with their foe;
A fond illusion warded every blow:

They deemed themselves as singled out by fate
With present suffering to expiate
The dazzling splendor of their future state.

The desert with its lonely majesty Of silent dreariness now met my eye; Far as the sight could reach, on either hand, A dreadful waste of undulating sand; No tree, no shade, no moisture and no air. Yet man and man's obedient slaves were there. Slow, spiritless with heat and thirst oppressed, The stragglers of a caravan progressed; When. lo, a fairy-vision greets their eyes: From the desert's sea-like solitude, 'gins rise A beauteous island wet with summer showers, All dressed in green, all jewelled o'er with flowers,

Where waving shade-trees chide the sultry day.

And cool lakes sleep and frolic streamlets play. Their fainted strength revives; they mend their pace:

They long to rest within so fair a place--
The mirage fades, but they have reached the

well.

The wretched pallet, the neglected room,
The ill fed lamp that flickered in the gloom,
The strange nurse dozing in her easy chair,
Cold as the charity that sent her there,
These told a story that I read too well,
Long taught, alas, such characters to spell.
But as I looked with sorrowing eye upon
The wasted features of the dying one.
A faint smile quiver'd on his bloodless lips.
As the wild flow'r, hot noon had withered, sips
Some pitying shower, and brightens for awhile,
So blushed the pale lip with that passing smile.
The P de lip blushed at the remembered past,
Still present in a dream the slumberer's last;
For in that friendly vision's trance, the youth
Laid down his being, nor woke to mourn the
truth.

But lo! the scene has changed--a glorious change!

On the horizon's verge, a bluish range
Of waving hill-tops, like a jealous chain,
Shuts in the beauty of a lovely plain.
Sweet running waters, orchards, vineyards fair,
Broad smiling fields that wave their yellow
hair

To the caressing gales, luxuriant trees
Whose mingled fruit and blossoms load the
breeze

With perfume all the year--oh, bounteous nature,

What feasts thou spreadest for thy thankless creature!

And yonder looms a city; bastioned walls
And battlements surround its pleasant halls;
It smiles behind its ramparts, like a maid
In a grim soldier's panoply array'd.
By the pale crescent in the crimson field
Which yonder waving ensign just revealed,
By those watch-towers so white and slim and
high

Whose airy forms point graceful to the sky
Like forest poplars frozen into stone.
This is the holy land where earliest shone
The new-born sun, the pregnant fountain source
Whence arts and creeds began their westward

course.

Hark to the martial clarion of the Frank; Hark to the tramp of men; lo, many a rank Of steel clad warriors. panting for the fray, Forms into lines-marches in close array, While rapid messengers fly o'er the ground The order of confusion to expound.

Now the swift squadrons of the toe advance With flashing cimeter or level lance, Or ataghans that thirst for Christian blood.

They meet! the crescent and the cross-the flood

And the red fire-the whirlwind and the rockAnd earth's deep caverns tremble with the shock.

of those who fight, the groans of those who die,
I hear the crash. the frequent battle cry
All these I hear, but I can see no more,
For mingled dust and steam of human gore.

Beneath the shade of yonder pleasant grove, Ere while the grateful trysting place of love, Two warriors lie expiring on the ground; The red life flows through many a hideous wound;