Geneva.
View of the Lake of Geneva from the Jura.[1]—Anxious to reach it before the Sun went down.—Obliged to proceed on Foot.—Alps.—Mont Blanc.—Effect of the Scene.
'Twas late—the sun had almost shoneHis last and best when I ran onAnxious to reach that splendid viewBefore the daybeams quite withdrewAnd feeling as all feel on firstApproaching scenes where, they are told,Such glories on their eyes will burstAs youthful bards in dreams behold.
'Twas distant yet and as I ranFull often was my wistful gazeTurned to the sun who now beganTo call in all his out-posts rays,And form a denser march of light,Such as beseems a hero's flight.Oh, how I wisht for JOSHUA'S power,To stay the brightness of that hour?But no—the sun still less became,Diminisht to a speck as splendidAnd small as were those tongues of flame,That on the Apostles' heads descended!
'Twas at this instant—while there glowedThis last, intensest gleam of light—Suddenly thro' the opening roadThe valley burst upon my sight!That glorious valley with its LakeAnd Alps on Alps in clusters swelling,Mighty and pure and fit to makeThe ramparts of a Godhead's dwelling.
I stood entranced—as Rabbins sayThis whole assembled, gazing worldWill stand, upon that awful day,When the Ark's Light aloft unfurledAmong the opening clouds shall shine,Divinity's own radiant sign!
Mighty MONT BLANC, thou wert to meThat minute, with thy brow in heaven,As sure a sign of DeityAs e'er to mortal gaze was given.Nor ever, were I destined yetTo live my life twice o'er again,Can I the deep-felt awe forget,The dream, the trance that rapt me then!
'Twas all that consciousness of powerAnd life, beyond this mortal hour;—Those mountings of the soul withinAt thoughts of Heaven—as birds beginBy instinct in the cage to rise,When near their time for change of skies;—That proud assurance of our claimTo rank among the Sons of Light,Mingled with shame—oh bitter shame!—At having riskt that splendid right,For aught that earth thro' all its rangeOf glories offers in exchange!'Twas all this, at that instant broughtLike breaking sunshine o'er my thought—'Twas all this, kindled to a glowOf sacred zeal which could it shineThus purely ever man might grow,Even upon earth a thing divine,And be once more the creature madeTo walk unstained the Elysian shade!
No, never shall I lose the traceOf what I've felt in this bright place.And should my spirit's hope grow weak,Should I, oh God! e'er doubt thy power,This mighty scene again I'll seek,At the same calm and glowing hour,And here at the sublimest shrineThat Nature ever reared to TheeRekindle all that hope divineAndfeelmy immortality!
[1] Between Vattay and Gex.
Geneva.
Yes—if there yet live some of those,Who, when this small Republic rose,Quick as a startled hive of bees,Against her leaguering enemies—[1]When, as the Royal Satrap shookHis well-known fetters at her gates,Even wives and mothers armed and tookTheir stations by their sons and mates;And on these walls there stood—yet, no,Shame to the traitors—wouldhave stoodAs firm a band as e'er let flowAt Freedom's base their sacred blood;If those yet live, who on that nightWhen all were watching, girt for fight,Stole like the creeping of a pestFrom rank to rank, from breast to breast,Filling the weak, the old with fears,Turning the heroine's zeal to tears,—Betraying Honor to that brink,Where, one step more, and he must sink—And quenching hopes which tho' the last,Like meteors on a drowning mast,Would yet have led to death more bright,Than life e'er lookt, in all its light!Till soon, too soon, distrust, alarmsThroughout the embattled thousands ran,And the high spirit, late in arms,The zeal that might have workt such charms,Fell like a broken talisman—Their gates, that they had sworn should beThe gates of Death, that very dawn,Gave passage widely, bloodlessly,To the proud foe—nor sword was drawn,Nor even one martyred body castTo stain their footsteps, as they past;But of the many sworn at nightTo do or die, some fled the sight,Some stood to look with sullen frown,While some in impotent despairBroke their bright armor and lay down,Weeping, upon the fragments there!—If those, I say, who brought that shame,That blast upon GENEVA'S nameBe living still—tho' crime so darkShall hang up, fixt and unforgiven,In History's page, the eternal markFor Scorn to pierce—so help me, Heaven,I wish the traitorous slaves no worse,No deeper, deadlier disasterFrom all earth's ills no fouler curseThan to have *********** their master!
[1] In the year 1782, when the forces of Berne, Sardinia, and France laid siege to Geneva, and when, after a demonstration of heroism and self-devotion, which promised to rival the feats of their ancestors in 1602 against Savoy, the Genevans, either panic-struck or betrayed, to the surprise of all Europe, opened their gates to the besiegers, and submitted without a struggle to the extinction of their liberties—See an account of this Revolution in Coxe's Switzerland.
Geneva.
Fancy and Truth—Hippomenes and Atalanta. Mont Blanc.—Clouds.
Even here in this region of wonders I findThat light-footed Fancy leaves Truth far behind;Or at least like Hippomenes turns her astrayBy the golden illusions he flings in her way.
What a glory it seemed the first evening I gazed!MONT BLANC like a vision then suddenly raisedOn the wreck of the sunset—and all his arrayOf high-towering Alps, touched still with a lightFar holier, purer than that of the Day,As if nearness to Heaven had made them so bright!Then the dying at last of these splendors awayFrom peak after peak, till they left but a ray,One roseate ray, that, too precious to fly,O'er the Mighty of Mountains still glowingly hung,Like the last sunny step of ASTRAEA, when high,From the summit of earth to Elysium she sprung!And those infinite Alps stretching out from the sightTill they mingled with Heaven, now shorn of their light,Stood lofty and lifeless and pale in the sky,Like the ghosts of a Giant Creation gone by!
That scene—I have viewed it this evening again,By the same brilliant light that hung over it then—The valley, the lake in their tenderest charms—MONT BLANC in his awfullest pomp—and the wholeA bright picture of Beauty, reclined in the armsOf Sublimity, bridegroom elect of her soul!But where are the mountains that round me at firstOne dazzling horizon of miracles burst?Those Alps beyond Alps, without end swelling onLike the waves of eternity—where aretheygone?Clouds—clouds—they were nothing but clouds, after all![1]That chain of MONT BLANC'S, which my fancy flew o'er,With a wonder that naught on this earth can recall,Were but clouds of the evening and now are no more.
What a picture of Life's young illusions! Oh, Night,Drop thy curtain at once and hideallfrom my sight.
[1] It is often very difficult to distinguish between clouds and Alps; and on the evening when I first saw this magnificent scene, the clouds were so disposed along the whole horizon, as to deceive me into an idea of the stupendous extent of these mountains, which my subsequent observation was very far, of course, from confirming.
Milan.
The Picture Gallery.—Albano's Rape of Proserpine.—Reflections.— Universal Salvation.—Abraham sending away Agar, by Guercino.—Genius.
Went to theBrera—saw a Dance of LovesBy smooth ALBANO! him whose pencil teemsWith Cupids numerous as in summer grovesThe leaflets are or motes in summer beams.
'Tis for the theft of Enna's flower from earth,These urchins celebrate their dance of mirthRound the green tree, like fays upon a heath—Those that are nearest linkt in order bright,Cheek after cheek, like rose-buds in a wreath;And those more distant showing from beneathThe others' wings their little eyes of light.While see! among the clouds, their eldest brotherBut just flown up tells with a smile of blissThis prank of Pluto to his charmed motherWho turns to greet the tidings with a kiss!
Well might the Loves rejoice—and well did theyWho wove these fables picture in their weavingThat blessed truth, (which in a darker dayORIGEN lost his saintship for believing,[1])—That Love, eternal Love, whose fadeless rayNor time nor death nor sin can overcast,Even to the depths of hell will find his way,And soothe and heal and triumph there at last!GUERCINO'S Agar—where the bondmaid hearsFrom Abram's lips that he and she must part,And looks at him with eyes all full of tearsThat seem the very last drops from her heart.Exquisite picture!—let me not be toldOf minor faults, of coloring tame and cold—If thus to conjure up a face so fair,[2]So full of sorrow; with the story thereOf all that woman suffers when the stayHer trusting heart hath leaned on falls away—If thus to touch the bosom's tenderest spring,By calling into life such eyes as bringBack to our sad remembrance some of thoseWe've smiled and wept with in their joys and woes,Thus filling them with tears, like tears we've known,Till all the pictured grief becomes our own—Ifthisbe deemed the victory of Art—If thus by pen or pencil to lay bareThe deep, fresh, living fountains of the heartBefore all eyes be Genius—it isthere!
[1] The extension of the Divine Love ultimately even to the regions of the damned.
[2] It is probable that this fine head is a portrait, as we find it repeated in a picture by Guercino, which is in the possession of Signor Carnuccini, the brother of the celebrated painter at Rome.
Padua.
Fancy and Reality.—Rain-drops and Lakes.—Plan of a Story.—Where to place the Scene of it.—In some unknown Region.—Psalmanazar's Imposture with respect to the Island of Formosa.
The more I've viewed this world the more I've found,That, filled as 'tis with scenes and creatures rare.Fancy commands within her own bright roundA world of scenes and creatures far more fair.Nor is it that her power can call up thereA single charm, that's not from Nature won,No more than rainbows in their pride can wearA single hue unborrowed from the sun—But 'tis the mental medium it shines thro'That lends to Beauty all its charm and hue;As the same light that o'er the level lakeOne dull monotony of lustre flings,Will, entering in the rounded raindrop, makeColors as gay as those on Peris' wings!
And such, I deem, the difference between real,Existing Beauty and that form idealWhich she assumes when seen by poets' eyes,Like sunshine in the drop—with all those dyesWhich Fancy's variegating prism supples.
I have a story of two lovers, filledWith all the pure romance, the blissful sadness,And the sad, doubtful bliss that ever thrilledTwo young and longing hearts in that sweet madness.But where to choose the region of my visionIn this wide, vulgar world—what real spotCan be found out sufficiently ElysianFor two such perfect lovers I know not.Oh for some fair FORMOSA, such as he,The young Jew fabled of, in the Indian Sea,By nothing but its name of Beauty known,And which Queen Fancy might make all her own,Her fairy kingdom—take its people, lands,And tenements into her own bright hands,And make at least one earthly corner fitFor Love to live in, pure and exquisite!
Venice.
The Fall of Venice not to be lamented—Former Glory.—Expedition against Constantinople.—Giustinianis.—Republic.—Characteristics of the old Government.—Golden Book.—Brazen Mouths.—Spies.—Dungeons.—Present Desolation.
Mourn not for VENICE—let her restIn ruin, 'mong those States unblest,Beneath whose gilded hoofs of pride,Where'er they trampled, Freedom died.No—let us keep our tears for them,Where'er they pine, whose fall hath beenNot from a blood-stained diadem,Like that which deckt this ocean-queen,But from high daring in the causeOf human Rights—the only goodAnd blessed strife, in which man drawsHis mighty sword on land or flood.
Mourn not for VENICE; tho' her fallBe awful, as if Ocean's waveSwept o'er her, she deserves it all,And Justice triumphs o'er her grave.Thus perish every King and StateThat run the guilty race she ran,Strong but in ill and only greatBy outrage against God and man!
True, her high spirit is at rest,And all those days of glory gone,When the world's waters, east and west,Beneath her white-winged commerce shone;When with her countless barks she wentTo meet the Orient Empire's might.[1]And her Giustinianis sentTheir hundred heroes to that fight.
Vanisht are all her pomps, 'tis true,But mourn them not—for vanisht too(Thanks to that Power, who soon or late,Hurls to the dust the guilty Great,)Are all the outrage, falsehood, fraud,The chains, the rapine, and the blood,That filled each spot, at home, abroad,Where the Republic's standard stood.Desolate VENICE! when I trackThy haughty course thro' centuries back;Thy ruthless power, obeyed but curst—The stern machinery of thy State,Which hatred would, like steam, have burst,Had stronger fear not chilled even hate;—Thy perfidy, still worse than aughtThy own unblushing SARPI[2] taught;—Thy friendship which, o'er all beneathIts shadow, rained down dews of death;[3]—Thy Oligarchy's Book of Gold,Closed against humble Virtue's name,But opened wide for slaves who soldTheir native land to thee and shame;[4]—Thy all-pervading host of spiesWatching o'er every glance and breath,Till men lookt in each others' eyes,To read their chance of life or death;—Thy laws that made a mart of blood,And legalized the assassin's knife;[5]—Thy sunless cells beneath the flood,And racks and Leads that burnt out life;—
When I review all this and seeThe doom that now hath fallen on thee;Thy nobles, towering once so proud,Themselves beneath the yoke now bowed,—A yoke by no one grace redeemed,Such as of old around thee beamed,But mean and base as e'er yet galledEarth's tyrants when themselves enthralled,—I feel the moral vengeance sweet.And smiling o'er the wreck repeat:—"Thus perish every King and State"That tread the steps which VENICE trod,"Strong but in ill and only great,"By outrage against man and God!"
[1] Under the Doge Michaeli, in 1171.
[2] The celebrated Fra Paolo. The collections of Maxims which this bold monk drew up at the request of the Venetian Government, for the guidance of the Secret Inquisition of State, are so atrocious as to seem rather an over-charged satire upon despotism, than a system of policy, seriously inculcated, and but too readily and constantly pursued.
[3] Conduct of Venice towards her allies and dependencies, particularly to unfortunate Padua.
[4] Among those admitted to the honor of being inscribed in theLibro d'orowere some families of Brescia, Treviso, and other places, whose only claim to that distinction was the zeal with which they prostrated themselves and their country at the feet of the republic.
[5] By the infamous statutes of the State Inquisition, not only was assassination recognized as a regular mode of punishment, but this secret power over life was delegated to their minions at a distance, with nearly as much facility as a licence is given under the game laws of England. The only restriction seems to have been the necessity of applying for a new certificate, after every individual exercise of the power.
Venice.
Lord Byron's Memoirs, written by himself.—Reflections, when about to read them.
Let me a moment—ere with fear and hopeOf gloomy, glorious things, these leaves I ope—As one in fairy tale to whom the keyOf some enchanter's secret halls is given,Doubts while he enters slowly, tremblingly,If he shall meet with shapes from hell or heaven—Let me a moment think what thousands liveO'er the wide earth this instant who would give,Gladly, whole sleepless nights to bend the browOver these precious leaves, as I do now.
How all who know—and where is he unknown?To what far region have his songs not flown,Like PSAPHON'S birds[1] speaking their master's name,In every language syllabled by Fame?—How all who've felt the various spells combinedWithin the circle of that mastermind,—Like spells derived from many a star and metTogether in some wondrous amulet,—Would burn to know when first the Light awokeIn his young soul,—and if the gleams that brokeFrom that Aurora of his genius, raisedMost pain or bliss in those on whom they blazed;Would love to trace the unfolding of that power,Which had grown ampler, grander, every hour;And feel in watching o'er his first advanceAs did the Egyptian traveller[2] when he stoodBy the young Nile and fathomed with his lanceThe first small fountains of that mighty flood.
They too who mid the scornful thoughts that dwellIn his rich fancy, tingeing all its streams,—As if the Star of Bitterness which fellOn earth of old,[3] had touched them with its beams,—Can track a spirit which tho' driven to hate,From Nature's hands came kind, affectionate;And which even now, struck as it is with blight,Comes out at times in love's own native light;—How gladly all who've watched these struggling raysOf a bright, ruined spirit thro' his lays,Would here inquire, as from his own frank lips,What desolating grief, what wrongs had drivenThat noble nature into cold eclipse;Like some fair orb that, once a sun in heaven.And born not only to surprise but cheerWith warmth and lustre all within its sphere,Is now so quenched that of its grandeur lastsNaught but the wide, cold shadow which it casts.
Eventful volume! whatsoe'er the changeOf scene and clime—the adventures bold and strange—The griefs—the frailties but too frankly told—The loves, the feuds thy pages may unfold,If Truth with half so prompt a hand unlocksHis virtues as his failings, we shall findThe record there of friendships held like rocks,And enmities like sun-touched snow resigned;Of fealty, cherisht without change or chill,In those who served him, young, and serve him still;Of generous aid given, with that noiseless artWhich wakes not pride, to many a wounded heart;Of acts—but, no—notfrom himself must aughtOf the bright features of his life be sought.
While they who court the world, like Milton's cloud,"Turn forth their silver lining" on the crowd,This gifted Being wraps himself in night;And keeping all that softens and adornsAnd gilds his social nature hid from sight,Turns but its darkness on a world he scorns.
[1] Psaphon, in order to attract the attention of the world, taught multitudes of birds to speak his name, and then let them fly away in various directions; whence the proverb, "Psaphonis aves."
[2] Bruce.
[3] "And the name of the star is called Wormwood, and the third part of the waters became wormwood."—Rev. viii.
Venice.
Female Beauty at Venice.—No longer what it was in the time of Titian.— His mistress.—Various Forms in which he has painted her.—Venus.—Divine and profane Love.—La Fragilita d'Amore—Paul Veronese.—His Women.— Marriage of Cana.—Character of Italian Beauty.—Raphael's Fornarina.— Modesty.
Thy brave, thy learned have passed away:Thy beautiful!—ah, where are they?The forms, the faces that once shone,Models of grace, in Titian's eye,Where are they now, while flowers live onIn ruined places, why, oh! whyMust Beauty thus with Glory die?That maid whose lips would still have moved,Could art have breathed a spirit through them;Whose varying charms her artist lovedMore fondly every time he drew them,(So oft beneath his touch they past,Each semblance fairer than the last);Wearing each shape that Fancy's rangeOffers to Love—yet still the oneFair idol seen thro' every change,Like facets of some orient stone,—In each the same bright image shown.Sometimes a Venus, unarrayedBut in her beauty[1]—sometimes decktIn costly raiment, as a maidThat kings might for a throne select.[2]Now high and proud, like one who thoughtThe world should at her feet be brought;Now with a look reproachful sad,[3]—Unwonted look from brow so glad,—And telling of a pain too deepFor tongue to speak or eyes to weep.Sometimes thro' allegory's veil,In double semblance seemed to shine,Telling a strange and mystic taleOf Love Profane and Love Divine[4]—Akin in features, but in heartAs far as earth and heaven apart.Or else (by quaint device to proveThe frailty of all worldly love)Holding a globe of glass as thinAs air-blown bubbles in her hand,With a young Love confined therein,Whose wings seem waiting to expand—And telling by her anxious eyesThat if that frail orb break he flies.[5]
Thou too with touch magnificent,PAUL of VERONA!—where are they?The oriental forms[6] that lentThy canvas such a bright array?Noble and gorgeous dames whose dressSeems part of their own loveliness;Like the sun's drapery which at eveThe floating clouds around him weaveOf light they from himself receive!Where is there now the living faceLike those that in thy nuptial throng[7]By their superb, voluptuous grace,Make us forget the time, the place,The holy guests they smile among,—Till in that feast of heaven-sent wineWe see no miracles but thine.
If e'er, except in Painting's dream,There bloomed such beauty here, 'tis gone,—Gone like the face that in the streamOf Ocean for an instant shone,When Venus at that mirror gaveA last look ere she left the wave.And tho', among the crowded ways,We oft are startled by the blazeOf eyes that pass with fitful light.Like fire-flies on the wing at night[8]'Tis not that nobler beauty givenTo show how angels look in heaven.Even in its shape most pure and fair,'Tis Beauty with but half her zone,All that can warm the sense is there,But the Soul's deeper charm has flown:—'Tis RAPHAEL's Fornarina,—warm,Luxuriant, arch, but unrefined;A flower round which the noontide swarmOf young Desires may buzz and wind,But where true Love no treasure meetsWorth hoarding in his hive of sweets.
Ah no,—for this and for the hueUpon the rounded cheek, which tellsHow fresh within the heart this dewOf love's unrifled sweetness dwells,We must go back to our own Isles,Where Modesty, which here but givesA rare and transient grace to smiles,In the heart's holy centre lives;And thence as from her throne diffusesO'er thoughts and looks so bland a reign,That not a thought or feeling losesIts freshness in that gentle chain.
[1] In the Tribune at Florence.
[2] In the Palazzo Pitti.
[3] Alludes particularly to the portrait of her in the Sciarra collection at Rome, where the look of mournful reproach in those full, shadowy eyes, as if she had been unjustly accused of something wrong, is exquisite.
[4] The fine picture in the Palazzo Borghese, called (it is not easy to say why) "Sacred and Profane Love," in which the two figures, sitting on the edge of the fountain, are evidently portraits of the same person.
[5] This fanciful allegory is the subject of a picture by Titian in the possession of the Marquis Cambian at Turin, whose collection, though small, contains some beautiful specimens of all the great masters.
[6] As Paul Veronese gave but little into thebeau idéal, his women may be regarded as pretty close imitations of the living models which Venice afforded in his time.
[7] The Marriage of Cana.
[8] "Certain it is [as Arthur Young truly and feelingly says] one now and then meets with terrible eyes in Italy."
Venice.
The English to be met with everywhere.—Alps and Threadneedle Street.—The Simplon and the Stocks.—Rage for travelling.—Blue Stockings among the Wahabees.—Parasols and Pyramids.—Mrs. Hopkins and the Wall of China.
And is there then no earthly place,Where we can rest in dream Elysian,Without some curst, round English face,Popping up near to break the vision?Mid northern lakes, mid southern vines,Unholy cits we're doomed to meet;Nor highest Alps nor ApenninesAre sacred from Threadneedle Street!
If up the Simplon's path we wind,Fancying we leave this world behind,Such pleasant sounds salute one's earAs—"Baddish news from 'Change, my dear—"The funds—(phew I curse this ugly hill)—"Are lowering fast—(what, higher still?)—"And—(zooks, we're mounting up to heaven!)—"Will soon be down to sixty-seven."
Go where we may—rest where we will.Eternal London haunts us still.The trash of Almack's or Fleet Ditch—And scarce a pin's head differencewhich—Mixes, tho' even to Greece we run,With every rill from Helicon!And if this rage for travelling lasts,If Cockneys of all sects and castes,Old maidens, aldermen, and squires,Willleave their puddings and coal fires,To gape at things in foreign landsNo soul among them understands;If Blues desert their coteries,To show off 'mong the Wahabees;If neither sex nor age controls,Nor fear of Mamelukes forbidsYoung ladies with pink parasolsTo glide among the Pyramids—
Why, then, farewell all hope to findA spot that's free from London-kind!Who knows, if to the West we roam,But we may find someBlue"at home"Among the Blacks of Carolina—Or flying to the Eastward seeSome Mrs. HOPKINS taking teaAnd toast upon the Wall of China!
Mantua.
Verses of Hippolyta to her Husband.
They tell me thou'rt the favored guestOf every fair and brilliant throng;No wit like thine to wake the jest,No voice like thine to breathe the song.And none could guess, so gay thou art,That thou and I are far apart.Alas, alas! how different flows,With thee and me the time away!Not that I wish thee sad, heaven knows—Still if thou canst, be light and gay;I only know that without theeThe sun himself is dark for me.
Do I put on the jewels rareThou'st always loved to see me wear?Do I perfume the locks that thouSo oft hast braided o'er my brow,Thus deckt thro' festive crowds to run,And all the assembled world to see,—All but the one, the absent one,Worth more than present worlds to me!No, nothing cheers this widowed heart—My only joy from thee apart,From thee thyself, is sitting hoursAnd days before thy pictured form—That dream of thee, which Raphael's powersHave made with all but life-breath warm!And as I smile to it, and sayThe words I speak to thee in play,I fancy from their silent frame,Those eyes and lips give back the same:And still I gaze, and still they keepSmiling thus on me—till I weep!Our little boy too knows it well,For there I lead him every dayAnd teach his lisping lips to tellThe name of one that's far away.Forgive me, love, but thus aloneMy time is cheered while thou art gone.
Florence.
No—'tis not the region where Love's to be found—They have bosoms that sigh, they have glances that rove,They have language a Sappho's own lip might resound,When she warbled her best—but they've nothing like Love.
Nor is't that puresentimentonly they want,Which Heaven for the mild and the tranquil hath made—Calm, wedded affection, that home-rooted plantWhich sweetens seclusion and smiles in the shade;
That feeling which, after long years have gone by,Remains like a portrait we've sat for in youth,Where, even tho' the flush of the colors may fly,The features still live in their first smiling truth;
That union where all that in Woman is kind,With all that in Man most ennoblingly towers,Grow wreathed into one—like the column, combinedOf thestrengthof the shaft and the capital'sflowers.
Of this—bear ye witness, ye wives, everywhere,By the ARNO, the PO, by all ITALY'S streams—Of this heart-wedded love, so delicious to share,Not a husband hath even one glimpse in his dreams.
But itisnot this only;—born full of the lightOf a sun from whose fount the luxuriant festoonsOf these beautiful valleys drink lustre so brightThat beside him our suns of the north are but moons,—
We might fancy at least, like their climate they burned;And that Love tho' unused in this region of springTo be thus to a tame Household Deity turned,Would yet be all soul when abroad on the wing.
And theremaybe, therearethose explosions of heartWhich burst when the senses have first caught the flame;Such fits of the blood as those climates impart,Where Love is a sun-stroke that maddens the frame.
But that Passion which springs in the depth of the soul;Whose beginnings are virginly pure as the sourceOf some small mountain rivulet destined to rollAs a torrent ere long, losing peace in its course—
A course to which Modesty's struggle but lendsA more headlong descent without chance of recall;But which Modesty even to the last edge attends,And then throws a halo of tears round its fall!
This exquisite Passion—ay, exquisite, evenMid the ruin its madness too often hath made,As it keeps even then a bright trace of the heaven,That heaven of Virtue from which it has strayed—
This entireness of love which can only be found,Where Woman like something that's holy, watched over,And fenced from her childhood with purity round,Comes body and soul fresh as Spring to a lover!
Where not an eye answers, where not a hand presses,Till spirit with spirit in sympathy move;And the Senses asleep in their sacred recessesCan only be reached thro' the temple of Love!—
This perfection of Passion-how can it be found,Where the mystery Nature hath hung round the tieBy which souls are together attracted and bound,Is laid open for ever to heart,ear and eye;—
Where naught of that innocent doubt can exist,That ignorance even than knowledge more bright,Which circles the young like the morn's sunny mist,And curtains them round in their own native light;—
Where Experience leaves nothing for Love to reveal,Or for Fancy in visions to gleam o'er the thought:But the truths which alone we would die to concealFrom the maiden's young heart are the only ones taught.
No, no, 'tis not here, howsoever we sigh,Whether purely to Hymen's one planet we pray,Or adore, like Sabaeans, each light of Love's sky,Here is not the region to fix or to stray.
For faithless in wedlock, in gallantry gross,Without honor to guard, to reserve, to restrain,What have they a husband can mourn as a loss?What have they a lover can prize as a gain?
Florence.
Music in Italy.—Disappointed by it.—Recollections or other Times and Friends.—Dalton.—Sir John Stevenson.—His Daughter.—Musical Evenings together.
If it be true that Music reigns,Supreme, in ITALY'S soft shades,'Tis like that Harmony so famous,Among the spheres, which He of SAMOSDeclared had such transcendent meritThat not a soul on earth could hear it;For, far as I have come—from Lakes,Whose sleep the Tramontana breaks,Thro' MILAN and that land which gaveThe Hero of the rainbow vest[1]—By MINCIO'S banks, and by that wave,Which made VERONA'S bard so blest—Places that (like the Attic shore,Which rung back music when the seaStruck on its marge) should be all o'erThrilling alive with melody—I've heard no music—not a noteOf such sweet native airs as floatIn my own land among the throngAnd speak our nation's soul for song.
Nay, even in higher walks, where ArtPerforms, as 'twere, the gardener's part,And richer if not sweeter makesThe flowers she from the wild-hedge takes—Even there, no voice hath charmed my ear,No taste hath won my perfect praise,Like thine, dear friend[2]—long, truly dear—Thine, and thy loved OLIVIA'S lays.She, always beautiful, and growingStill more so every note she sings—Like an inspired young Sibyl,[3] glowingWith her own bright imaginings!And thou, most worthy to be tiedIn music to her, as in love,Breathing that language by her side,All other language far above,Eloquent Song—whose tones and wordsIn every heart find answering chords!
How happy once the hours we past,Singing or listening all daylong,Till Time itself seemed changed at lastTo music, and we lived in song!Turning the leaves of HAYDN o'er,As quick beneath her master handThey opened all their brilliant store,Like chambers, touched by fairy wand;Or o'er the page of MOZART bending,Now by his airy warblings cheered,Now in his mournfulRequiemblendingVoices thro' which the heart was heard.And still, to lead our evening choir,Was He invoked, thy loved-one's Sire[4]—He who if aught of grace there beIn the wild notes I write or sing,First smoothed their links of harmony,And lent them charms they did not bring;—He, of the gentlest, simplest heart,With whom, employed in his sweet art,(That art which gives this world of oursA notion how they speak in heaven.)I've past more bright and charmed hoursThan all earth's wisdom could have given.Oh happy days, oh early friends,How Life since then hath lost its flowers!But yet—tho' Timesomefoliage rends,The stem, the Friendship, still is ours;And long may it endure, as greenAnd fresh as it hath always been!
How I have wandered from my theme!But where is he, that could returnTo such cold subjects from a dream,Thro' which these best of feelings burn?—Not all the works of Science, Art,Or Genius in this world are worthOne genuine sigh that from the heartFriendship or Love draws freshly forth.
[1] Bermago—the birthplace, it is said, of Harlequin.
[2] Edward Tuite Dalton, the first husband of Sir John Stevenson's daughter, the late Marchioness of Headfort.
[3] Such as those of Domenichino in the Palazza Borghese, at the Capitol, etc.
[4] Sir John Stevenson.
Rome.
Reflections on reading Du Cerceau's Account of the Conspiracy of Rienzi, in 1347.—The Meeting of the Conspirators on the Night of the 19th of May.—Their Procession in the Morning to the Capitol.—Rienzi's Speech.
'Twas a proud moment—even to hear the wordsOf Truth and Freedom mid these temples breathed,And see once more the Forum shine with swordsIn the Republic's sacred name unsheathed—That glimpse, that vision of a brighter dayFor his dear ROME, must to a Roman be,Short as it was, worth ages past awayIn the dull lapse of hopeless slavery.
'Twas on a night of May, beneath that moonWhich had thro' many an age seen Time untuneThe strings of this Great Empire, till it fellFrom his rude hands, a broken, silent shell—The sound of the church clock near ADRIAN'S TombSummoned the warriors who had risen for ROME,To meet unarmed,—with none to watch them there,But God's own eye,—and pass the night in prayer.Holy beginning of a holy cause,When heroes girt for Freedom's combat pauseBefore high Heaven, and humble in their mightCall down its blessing on that coming fight.
At dawn, in arms went forth the patriot band;And as the breeze, fresh from the TIBER, fannedTheir gilded gonfalons, all eyes could seeThe palm-tree there, the sword, the keys of Heaven—Types of the justice, peace and liberty,That were to bless them when their chains were riven.On to the Capitol the pageant moved,While many a Shade of other times, that stillAround that grave of grandeur sighing roved,Hung o'er their footsteps up the Sacred HillAnd heard its mournful echoes as the lastHigh-minded heirs of the Republic past.'Twas then that thou, their Tribune,[1] (name which broughtDreams of lost glory to each patriot's thought,)Didst, with a spirit Rome in vain shall seekTo wake up in her sons again, thus speak:—"ROMANS, look round you—on this sacred place"There once stood shrines and gods and godlike men."What see you now? what solitary trace"Is left of all that made ROME'S glory then?"The shrines are sunk, the Sacred Mount bereft"Even of its name—and nothing now remains"But the deep memory of that glory, left"To whet our pangs and aggravate our chains!"Butshallthis be?—our sun and sky the same,—"Treading the very soil our fathers trod,—"What withering curse hath fallen on soul and frame,"What visitation hath there come from God"To blast our strength and rot us into slaves,"Hereon our great forefathers' glorious graves?"It cannot be—rise up, ye Mighty Dead,—"If we, the living, are too weak to crush"These tyrant priests that o'er your empire tread,"Till all but Romans at Rome's tameness blush!
"Happy, PALMYRA, in thy desert domes"Where only date-trees sigh and serpents hiss;"And thou whose pillars are but silent homes"For the stork's brood, superb PERSEPOLIS!"Thrice happy both, that your extinguisht race"Have left no embers—no half-living trace—"No slaves to crawl around the once proud spot,"Till past renown in present shame's forgot."While ROME, the Queen of all, whose very wrecks,"If lone and lifeless thro' a desert hurled,"Would wear more true magnificence than decks"The assembled thrones of all the existing world—"ROME, ROME alone, is haunted, stained and curst,"Thro' every spot her princely TIBER laves,"By living human things—the deadliest, worst,"This earth engenders—tyrants and their slaves!"And we—oh shame!—we who have pondered o'er"The patriot's lesson and the poet's lay;[2]"Have mounted up the streams of ancient lore,"Tracking our country's glories all the way—"Evenwehave tamely, basely kist the ground"Before that Papal Power,—that Ghost of Her,"The World's Imperial Mistress—sitting crowned"And ghastly on her mouldering sepulchre![3]"But this is past:—too long have lordly priests"And priestly lords led us, with all our pride"Withering about us—like devoted beasts,"Dragged to the shrine, with faded garlands tied."'Tis o'er—the dawn of our deliverance breaks!"Up from his sleep of centuries awakes"The Genius of the Old Republic, free"As first he stood, in chainless majesty,"And sends his voice thro' ages yet to come,"Proclaiming ROME, ROME, ROME, Eternal ROME!"
[1] Rienzi.
[2] The fine Canzone of Petrarch, beginning"Spirto gentil,"is supposed, by Voltaire and others, to have been addressed to Rienzi; but there is much more evidence of its having been written, as Ginguené asserts, to the young Stephen Colonna, on his being created a Senator of Rome.
[3] This image is borrowed from Hobbes, whose words are, as near as I can recollect:—"For what is the Papacy, but the Ghost of the old Roman Empire, sitting crowned on the grave thereof?"
Rome.
Fragment of a Dream.—The great Painters supposed to be Magicians.—TheBeginnings of the Art.—Gildings on the Glories and Draperies.—Improvements under Giotto, etc.—The first Dawn of the true Style inMasaccio.—Studied by all the great Artists who followed him.—Leonardo daVinci, with whom commenced the Golden Age of Painting.—His Knowledge ofMathematics and of Music.—His female heads all like each other.—Triangular Faces.—Portraits of Mona Lisa, etc.—Picture of Vanity andModesty.—Hischef-d'oeuvre,the Last Supper.—Faded and almosteffaced.
Filled with the wonders I had seenIn Rome's stupendous shrines and halls,I felt the veil of sleep sereneCome o'er the memory of each scene,As twilight o'er the landscape falls.Nor was it slumber, sound and deep,But such as suits a poet's rest—That sort of thin, transparent sleep,Thro' which his day-dreams shine the best.Methought upon a plain I stood,Where certain wondrous men, 'twas said,With strange, miraculous power endued,Were coming each in turn to shedHis art's illusions o'er the sightAnd call up miracles of light.The sky above this lonely place,Was of that cold, uncertain hue,The canvas wears ere, warmed apace,Its bright creation dawns to view.
But soon a glimmer from the eastProclaimed the first enchantments nigh;[1]And as the feeble light increased,Strange figures moved across the sky,With golden glories deckt and streaksOf gold among their garments' dyes;[2]And life's resemblance tinged their cheeks,But naught of life was in their eyes;—Like the fresh-painted Dead one meets,Borne slow along Rome's mournful streets.
But soon these figures past away;And forms succeeded to their placeWith less of gold in their array,But shining with more natural grace,And all could see the charming wandsHad past into more gifted hands.Among these visions there was one,[3]Surpassing fair, on which the sun,That instant risen, a beam let fall,Which thro' the dusky twilight trembled.And reached at length the spot where allThose great magicians stood assembled.And as they turned their heads to viewThe shining lustre, I could traceThe bright varieties it threwOn each uplifted studying face:[4]While many a voice with loud acclaimCalled forth, "Masaccio" as the nameOf him, the Enchanter, who had raisedThis miracle on which all gazed.
'Twas daylight now—the sun had risenFrom out the dungeon of old Night.—Like the Apostle from his prisonLed by the Angel's hand of light;And—as the fetters, when that rayOf glory reached them, dropt away.[5]So fled the clouds at touch of day!Just then a bearded sage came forth,[6]Who oft in thoughtful dream would stand,To trace upon the dusky earthStrange learned figures with his wand;And oft he took the silver luteHis little page behind him bore,And waked such music as, when mute,Left in the soul a thirst for more!
Meanwhile his potent spells went on,And forms and faces that from outA depth of shadow mildly shoneWere in the soft air seen about.Tho' thick as midnight stars they beamed,Yet all like living sisters seemed,So close in every point resemblingEach other's beauties—from the eyesLucid as if thro' crystal trembling,Yet soft as if suffused with sighs,To the long, fawn-like mouth, and chin,Lovelily tapering, less and less,Till by this very charm's excess,Like virtue on the verge of sin,It touched the bounds of ugliness.Here lookt as when they lived the shadesOf some of Arno's dark-eyed maids—Such maids as should alone live onIn dreams thus when their charms are gone:Some Mona Lisa on whose eyesA painter for whole years might gaze,[7]Nor find in all his pallet's dyesOne that could even approach their blaze!Here float two spirit shapes,[8] the one,With her white fingers to the sunOutspread as if to ask his rayWhether it e'er had chanced to playOn lilies half so fair as they!This self-pleased nymph was Vanity—And by her side another smiled,In form as beautiful as she,But with that air subdued and mild,That still reserve of purity,Which is to beauty like the hazeOf evening to some sunny view,Softening such charms as it displaysAnd veiling others in that hue,Which fancy only can see thro'!This phantom nymph, who could she be,But the bright Spirit, Modesty?
Long did the learned enchanter stayTo weave his spells and still there past,As in the lantern's shifting playGroup after group in close array,Each fairer, grander, than the last.But the great triumph of his powerWas yet to come:—gradual and slow,(As all that is ordained to towerAmong the works of man must grow,)The sacred vision stole to view,In that half light, half shadow shown,Which gives to even the gayest hueA sobered, melancholy tone.It was a vision of that last,[9]Sorrowful night which Jesus pastWith his disciples when he saidMournfully to them—"I shall be"Betrayed by one who here hath fed"This night at the same board with me."And tho' the Saviour in the dreamSpoke not these words, we saw them beamLegibly in his eyes (so wellThe great magician workt his spell),And read in every thoughtful lineImprinted on that brow divine.
The meek, the tender nature, grieved,Not angered to be thus deceived—Celestial love requited illFor all its care, yet loving still—Deep, deep regret that there should fallFrom man's deceit so foul a blightUpon that parting hour—and allHisSpirit must have felt that night.Who, soon to die for human-kind,Thought only, mid his mortal pain,How many a soul was left behindFor whom he died that death in vain!
Such was the heavenly scene—alas!That scene so bright so soon should passBut pictured on the humid air,Its tints, ere long, grew languid there;[10]And storms came on, that, cold and rough,Scattered its gentlest glories all—As when the baffling winds blow offThe hues that hang o'er Terni's fall,—Till one by one the vision's beamsFaded away and soon it fled.To join those other vanisht dreamsThat now flit palely 'mong the dead,—The shadows of those shades that go.Around Oblivion's lake below!
[1] The paintings of those artists who were introduced into Venice and Florence from Greece.
[2] Margaritone of Orezzo, who was a pupil and imitator of the Greeks, is said to have invented this art of gilding the ornaments of pictures, a practice which, though it gave way to a purer taste at the beginning of the 16th century, was still occasionally used by many of the great masters: as by Raphael in the ornaments of the Fornarina, and by Rubens not unfrequently in glories and flames.
[3] The works of Masaccio.—For the character of this powerful and original genius, see Sir Joshua Reynolds's twelfth discourse. His celebrated frescoes are in the church of St. Pietro del Carmine, at Florence.
[4] All the great artists studies, and many of them borrowed from Masaccio. Several figures in the Cartoons of Raphael are taken, with but little alteration, from his frescoes.
[5] "And a light shined in the prison … and his chains fell off from his hands."—Acts.
[6] Leonardo da Vinci.
[7] He is said to have been four years employed upon the portrait of this fair Florentine, without being able, after all, to come up to his idea of her beauty.
[8] Vanity and Modesty in the collection of Cardinal Fesch, at Rome. The composition of the four hands here is rather awkward, but the picture, altogether, is very delightful. There is a repetition of the subject in the possession of Lucien Bonaparte.
[9] The Last Supper of Leonardo da Vinci, which is in the Refectory of the Convent delle Grazie at Milan.
[10] Leonardo appears to have used a mixture of oil and varnish for this picture, which alone, without the various other causes of its ruin, would have prevented any long duration of its beauties. It is now almost entirely effaced.